Interesting People mailing list archives
IP: re National Science Foundation to Fund Supercomputer
From: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 13:11:29 -0400
Date: Fri, 10 Aug 2001 12:30:52 -0500 From: gep2 () terabites com Subject: IP: National Science Foundation to Fund Supercomputer To: farber () cis upenn edu X-Mailer: SPRY Mail Version: 04.00.06.17 I note the particularly telling "of its kind" exemption in the article. :-) Clearly that's to prevent someone bringing up (didn't work! ;-) ) the SETI grid... a novel and apparently hugely successful collection of computers that probably already exceeds (and ultimately COULD exceed by probably many orders of magnitude) the capacities of the proposed DTF... For those not familiar with it... the voluntary SETI project installs a "screen-saver" on the computer of participating user's computers. The screen-saver activates when the computer isn't otherwise attended (lunchtimes, during meetings, while a home user is sleeping, etc). The screensaver goes and gets a batch of raw radiotelescope data from the SETI project's "host" computers, and then does some kind of highly CPU-intensive crunching of that data (probably including a lot of Fourier transforms and pattern matching, I suppose) in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. When the batch is done, results are sent back to SETI's computers and the screensaver fetches another batch of data to work on. Meanwhile, the "screensaver" also provides a fairly fascinating display on the monitor... so in fact it DOES make a good screen-saver, too, for those who believe in the need for such things. The SETI screensaver also doesn't significantly interfere with the other applications that the machine might be running (say, periodically waking up and going to empty a remote ISP-provided E-mail Inbox or something). Although I know people who haven't joined SETI yet (myself among them! I probably need to change that, though) I do know others who have... including at some of my clients where they run SETI software after-hours on their office systems. I think that this approach has ENORMOUS potential for running monumentally-sized, easily partitioned data crunching applications. The main concern of many, probably, is to know that they agree with the purpose of the effort... I'll bet that many would deny use of their computers for (e.g.) these Big-Brother-ish surveillance-camera face-matching efforts, or perhaps military-oriented projects. But for projects which appeal to people on a wide scale, certainly this SETI approach represents (probably BY FAR!) the largest amount of "free" grid-able computing power available anywhere. <---- Begin Forwarded Message ----> http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/technology/tech-tech-supercomput.htmlNational Science Foundation to Fund Supercomputer SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The National Science Foundation said it will spend $53 million to build a massive computing grid that will be the most powerful of its kind ever completed and could lead to ground-breaking research that would have otherwise taken years, if not decades, to complete. Called the Distributed Terascale Facility, or DTF, it will be used by four U.S. research centers for research in areas including molecular modeling for detecting diseases, cures and drug discovery, research on alternative energy sources, climate and atmospheric simulations, among others.<---- End Forwarded Message ----> Gordon Peterson http://personal.terabites.com/ Support the Anti-SPAM Amendment! Join at http://www.cauce.org/ 12/19/98: Partisan Republicans scornfully ignore the voters they "represent". 12/09/00: the date the Republican Party took down democracy in America.
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