km790816 writes: "I was reading an article in US News about a novel way to end spam: Hash Cash. From US News: 'our E-mail systems could be configured to reject every message from a stranger until the sender's computer had performed a difficult math problem and sent back the correct result. For one-to-one correspondence, this preliminary step would be unnoticed. But bulk E-mailings to strangers would become too costly in terms of needed computational cycles to be feasible, even with a supercomputer.'" If you've heard of Hash Cash before, don't click through, there's nothing new here. But if you haven't, here's a good introduction to the concept.

richard writes: "Clay Shirky has responded to Jon Katz's article, Does P2P Suck?, (and a WSJ article published the same day) in an article titled "Backlash!" on OpenP2P.com. Shirky says: "P2P means many things to many people. PC users don't have to be second-class citizens. PCs can be woven directly into the Internet. Content can be provided from the edges of the network just as surely as from the center. Millions of small computers can be more reliable than one giant server. Millions of small CPUs can do the work of a supercomputer. ... These are sloppy ideas, ideas that don't describe a technology or a business model, but they are also big ideas, and they are also good ideas.""

Ronin Developer writes with word of this "interesting article on CNN about a new desktop-size super computer that reconfigures itself on the fly. The company name is 'Star Bridge.' Ring any bells? If I remember correctly, wasn't there something on /. about this a year ago?" Indeedy do -- Star Bridge seems to go straight from wacky-but-cool promises to Where are they now? (and back) with finesse. It's the the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie plot of hardware companies -- simultaneously head-scratchingly implausible, mildly compelling, and numbingly persistent.

rchatterjee writes "Cray, the only mainstream recognizeable name in supercomputing, has been busy lately. Their totally new MTA-2 supercomputer design will use a UltraSPARC-III powered Sun Fire 6800 server to just feed the data to the MTA-2's processor. They're also refocussing on Vector Supercomputers and are going to release their first new vector supercomputer since Tera Computing bought them, the SV-2 in 2002. And if that wasn't enough they have a deal with API networks to develop Alpha processor based Beowulf clusters of Linux machines that as a cluster will run the same operating system as Cray's T3E supercomputers. Seymour Cray would be proud. You can get a quick overview of all the latest Cray developments from this article on Cnet."

Tebubaga writes: "The BBC is reporting that IBM has won the contract to produce the next generation of micro-processors for Sony's Playstation 3 game console due sometime in 2004. Sony, IBM and Toshiba are joining toether to create a 'supercomputer on a chip' which sounds like the PS3 will be much more than just another games console. Quote, 'The result will be consumer devices that are more powerful than IBM's Deep Blue super-computer, operate at low power and access the broadband internet at ultra-high speeds". Bet it still won't do my laundry though...'

Rick the Red asks: "I'd like to build a mini-supercomputer for our High School (and perhaps another for the Junior High). Given that cost is an issue, but given that effective, hands-on demonstration of the principles of parallel processing and clustered computing is the primary goal, how many nodes would it take to make a reasonable demonstration Beowulf cluster? Two? Eight? Sixteen? Has anyone else here done this, and if so are there resources (lesson plans would be nice) on the net for teachers? Also, has anyone networked a room full of computers such that one minute they're individual PCs available for the usual classroom stuff and the next minute they're a Beowulf cluster? If so, how did you do it? And for the final, far out question: Has anyone ever used VMware to create a Beowulf simulator, clustering virtual PCs running on one physical box?"

Jason Bennett, frequent reviewer of books, now regales you with this great piece on the background and development of the new encryption standard to replace the pretty-good-till-now DES. It's full of linked information you'll want to digest, too. Update: 02/23 12:32 AM by T : Note: The links I borked are better now; mea culpa (and beware copying in Mozilla).

Karl Weiss writes: "Section 2.5 of the Juno Privacy Policy has some very interesting statements in it - you authorize them to download an app to track your usage and you can't do anything about it, you are to keep your computer on 24/7, or give them the right to make your computer call out at their desire, and they can install a screen saver on your computer with ads, and you can't get rid of it. Obviously this bothers me, but the real kicker as far as I'm concerned is that they will allow third parties to use the downloaded software. Does M$ looking for pirated software sound like a player? Or what happens if someone cracks the software? Does that open your hard drive data to anyone? As the senior network instructor at a large private computer school, I have advised faculity and staff to not use Juno due to these requirments." It looks like the few remaining free ISPs are searching for ways to make up advertising income during the dot-com meltdown, and the "solution" they've come up with is to make use of their users' computers to do distributed processing. Will Juno users realize what they are agreeing to?

Pheno writes: "This looks like a fun LUG project. A simple setup for a Linux cluster called OSCAR from the Open Cluster Group. The people behind it are Oak Ridge National Labs and the National Center for Supercomputing Applications and some private companies. According to this Newsforge (part of the Keiretsu) story their 'Supercomputer on a CD' software is supposed to make it so easy to put a Beowulf cluster together a high school student or MCSE can do it in a few hours."

Zeus305 writes: "Today NuTec Sciences, Inc. will be announcing its purchase of the world's fastest commercial supercomputer, second overall only to ASCI White. NuTec will use and lease time on the 1,250 clustered IBM servers to analyse genes decoded by the human genome project to try to better understand the causes of diseases like cancer by running month-long algorithms that analyse the relationships between different areas of the genome. This beast will have 2.5 terabytes of RAM and 50 TB of disk space."

thefullmonty writes "Yahoo! News is reporting that Royal Dutch/Shell is going to install the world's largest Linux supercomputer. Shell's Exploration & Production unit will use the supercomputer, consisting of 1,024 IBM X-Series servers, to run seismic and other geophysical applications in its search for more oil and gas. The article goes on to talk about how larger companies are moving towards Linux and some of the advantages of making such a move. ."

Way back in October we solicited ideas for Christmas presents for geeks. This was done with Wired, and the results appear in the current issue (the lime-green colored one: unless you're blind, you can't miss it. You'll only be able to find the first copy, tho). The authors' money will be a nice Christmas present to the EFF. Thanks go to Paul, who did all the really hard work compiling the final list from all your ideas. Now read on to see the list.

mcryptic writes "Cnet News has this story about how IBM now tops the top 500 list with the new ASCI White supercomputer. The machine has 8,192 CPUs, weighs 106 tons and takes up two basketball courts' worth of floor space." And it's for Seti@home...er...no.

Snocone writes: "Here is the first real world application (researching drug effects on the brain, ironically enough) of Terra Soft's 8-way Black Lab Linux cluster. Even if they didn't deserve mad props for standing up proudly against the Lintel hegemony, there's just something fundamentally hilarious about selling an $18K supercomputer made out of iMacs." So - eight Imacs. You could get the different colors, and call it a Lifesavers Candy Cluster?

"For quick sale: Supercomputer of distinguished pedigree, a CRAY Y-MP C90, one of the world's most powerful only seven short years ago, an extremely reliable workhorse for R&D computing. Get the jump on your competitors! Bring this black & gold beauty home to your research center or lab today!" Read the story or place your bid. ... If you've ever wanted to go to the top of the distributed.net stats, here's your chance.

Tower writes: "Compaq Computer (Digital) and the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center have won a $36 million contract to build a 2,728-processor supercomputer using 1.1 GHz EV68 processors in a 682 node Beowulf setup. Check it out here." This is a different machine than this one: That one was supposed to be used to calculate nuclear explosions, this one will be used by the National Science Foundation to work on biophysics, global climate change, astrophysics and materials science, according to the article.

Spittoon pointed out this ZDNet article claiming that development proceeds apace on G4 portables for Apple's PowerBook line, and that if all goes well, they'll be shown off at Macworld Expo in January. I could live with ads claiming that "The new PowerBook is a supercomputer" in exchange for knocking a couple notes off the price of a G3 PowerBook ;) Slot-loaded CD / DVD drives are long overdue in notebooks, anyhow, so I hope at least that part of the story pans out.

CalamityJones writes "In the 'Well, DUH!' department, this story from the AP shrieks 'Cities May Make Their Own Weather.' As if anyone with half a brain could possibly have missed this point." Not having a weather supercomputer to crunch the numbers, it wasn't quite that obvious to me, but then what do I know. Living in Michigan I'm used to the lake effect - if I lived east of some major asphalt, I guess I'd get the L.A. effect.

sheckard writes: "ABC News is reporting about the world's fastest 'supercomputer,' but the catch is that it doesn't do much by itself. The GRAPE 6 supercomputer computes gravitational force, but needs to be hooked up to a normal PC. The PC does the accounting work, while the GRAPE 6 does the crunching." The giant pendulum of full-steam-ahead specialization vs. all-purpose flexibility knocks down another one of those tiny red pins ...

On May 23 we requested questions for Greg Lindahl, chief designer of the new NOAA Forecast Systems Laboratories massive Alpha Linux Cluster. Here are his answers. Fascinating stuff for people interested in big-time parallel computing.