13 replies to this topic

[chriso_86]

images/news/ibm.jpgIBM's new Blue Gene/P supercomputer has broken the petaflop barrier!! For those who don't know a petaflop is equal to one quadrillion operations per second! The new system has 294,912 processors spanning acrossed 72 racks. However, they have built in the ability to scale the machine to a maximum of 884,736 processors acrossed 216 racks for a total possible processing power of around three petaflops!

I'm thinking it's about time we started sending e-mails to IBM asking them to run folding@home under our team number for about 24 hours, that should pretty much be enough to get us to the number one spot!

[hog]

I didn't even know such a thing was even possible. It's really amazing, but really, what is it useful for, except showing off they're better than the others ?

[brewin]

hog, on Jun 26 2007, 10:12 PM, said:

I didn't even know such a thing was even possible. It's really amazing, but really, what is it useful for, except showing off they're better than the others ?

It's for weather model calculations and such.

And I'm guessing it could play a mean game of Chess.

[Nvyseal]

brewin, on Jun 26 2007, 08:33 PM, said:

And I'm guessing it could play a mean game of Chess.

hmm, think it could beat the ole brewmeister?

[m.oreilly]

Nvyseal, on Jun 26 2007, 09:29 PM, said:

hmm, think it could beat the ole brewmeister?

i dunno. between brew and banj0, it would have a tough time...

[chriso_86]

LOL, IBM's supercomputer like fifteen years ago was able to beat the best chess player in the world! I think you guys would prove to be a walk in the park for it.

[brewin]

chriso_86, on Jun 27 2007, 09:30 AM, said:

LOL, IBM's supercomputer like fifteen years ago was able to beat the best chess player in the world! I think you guys would prove to be a walk in the park for it.

Exactly. Maybe if all the chess players in the world got together they could give Blue Gene/P a challenge. Maybe.

[hog]

brewin, on Jun 27 2007, 01:24 PM, said:

Exactly. Maybe if all the chess players in the world got together they could give Blue Gene/P a challenge. Maybe.

Yeah, they should find a way to connect brains together like they do with multi-processor computers!

[banj0]

Bah. Chess against a microchip is like arm wrestling against the tail of a crocodile. Academic at best, physically dangerous at worst. Not to mention, I believe Kasparov got hosed in the match(es) against Deep Blue.

Deep Junior, on the other hand, kicked his ass. But I'm pretty sure Brewin could've beat it.

[chriso_86]

How did he get hosed in the matches against Deep Blue???
I love how it seems like after a certain time we always come back to talking about chess!!

[hog]

chriso_86, on Jun 28 2007, 11:15 AM, said:

How did he get hosed in the matches against Deep Blue???
I love how it seems like after a certain time we always come back to talking about chess!!

lol I don't know if that's good or bad... It shows that our subjects of conversation are quite limited...

[brewin]

banj0, on Jun 28 2007, 03:06 AM, said:

But I'm pretty sure Brewin could've beat it.

Maybe with a hammer.

[banj0]

chriso_86, on Jun 28 2007, 11:15 AM, said:

How did he get hosed in the matches against Deep Blue???
I love how it seems like after a certain time we always come back to talking about chess!!

I subscribe to the conspiracy theory forwarded by a lot of chess people, including Kasparov, that in the 2nd match against Deep Blue, IBM enlisted the help of human chess players to secretly play alongside the computer during the actual match. That would prevent the machine from falling into materialistic traps. I believe IBM did it for financial reasons.

There's a documentary about this whole thing called Game Over:Kasparov and the Machine. It's a pretty entertaining, albeit slanted, take on the match.

edit: fixed the link

Edited by banj0, 28 June 2007 - 08:05 PM.

[chriso_86]

Hummm, well maybe it's documented in the recently released CIA info of past operations years ago.