[geeks] Best Vista story I've seen

[Dr. Robert Pasken]

On Wed, 2007-02-21 at 10:57 -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> On Tue, 20 Feb 2007 19:30:36 -0800
> "Sheldon T. Hall" <shel at tandem.artell.net> wrote:
> 
> > quoth Lionel Peterson ...
> > 
> > > Supposedly there was a network of Supercomputer Centers 
> > > available to the
> > > public, funded by the federal government - there was one in NJ, and
> > > another in Urbana, Illinois (where a certain fellow decided to write a
> > > browser with some friends of his), and I think there were 
> > > three or four more, IIRC...
> > > 
> > > The IDEA was that supercomputer time was available to educational
> > > organizations, government organizations, and other, non-commercial
> > > entities on a shared basis - not sure how it allplayed out...
> > 
> > Nowadays, it's hard to give away computer time.  Every organization with a
> > wallsocket seems to have more computer power than they know how to use.
> > I've tried to give away time on my SGI Challenge to local (Seattle) medical
> > researchers, with no takers.  I explain it to 'em, they say "Uh-huh," and I
> > never hear anything more.  I've been reduced to running Distributed Folding
> > (now concluded) and distributed.net just to keep the house warm.
> 
> I'm glad I'm not the only one who has seen that.
> 
> I hear all the time that so many organizations and small businesses could use
> computer power that they can't afford, but if you offer it, even for free,
> there are no takers.
> 
> 

I not sure that they don't want the equipment, but rather the shipping
costs are large enough that they cann't afford the equipment. There are
some SGI Origin 3800 up for sale at JPL for $45, I would love to have
them unfortunately the shipping costs are so large I cann't afford to
buy them even at $45. At one point I spent $500 out of my own pocket to
move some Sun workstations from Chicago to Saint Louis. The workstations
were given to us FREE, but It cost ME $500 to put semi-modern
workstations on my students desks. My wife allowed to do that JUST ONCE.
I had a chance to get for free a Cray J90 from Colorado, all I had to do
was pay for a shipper to get it from Boulder to St. Louis I had to pass
and the the J90 became little pieces as it fed into a shredder/
-- 
Dr. Robert Pasken <rpasken at eas.slu.edu>
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Saint Louis University