[ExI] homebrew cold freon bath super computer

[spike]

From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 
Subject: homebrew cold freon bath super computer

 

We have a tool at work which is a cold Freon bath. submerge the whole mess
in cold freon and BOOM, we have a great poor-man's highly parallel super
computer, ja? spike

 

 

 

 

Another thought: in the last several years, I have heard a lot of moaning
about how processor clock speeds suddenly stopped increasing, settling
around 4 GHz.  But it looks to me like we have enjoyed tremendous progress,
not in calculations per unit time, but rather in calculations per unit
energy.  That these little phone processors can do so much is really
exciting, because there are so many useful tasks that do not require
trillions of calculations, but perhaps only a few billion.  Chess is a good
example: it is playing at the level of the best humans using less than a
watt.  If we can do all that for just that little bit of energy, we can
stack them closely and carry away the waste heat using a simple device.
This reduces the latency between nodes and opens up a whole nuther
collection of capabilities and a whole nuther field of cool challenges.

 

Processor hipsters, have we had major advances in calculations per unit
energy, or watt?

 

spike

 

 

 

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