Flash Mob Supercomputer? 259
dan of the north writes "The NY Times (free reg yyy bbb) is running an article on flash mob computing. More info on the first event in SF on April 3, 2004. The goal is to run Linpack and "build a home-brew computer powerful enough to be added to a list of the world's 500 fastest computers." Minimum requirements are 1.3 GHZ Pentium III/AMD equivalent or better with 256MB of RAM, a 100 Base-T network connection and a CD-ROM - laptops preferred. "After taking a shot at a speed record, the computer will be reorganized to serve as the host of a giant multiplayer video game tournament." Cool... a 2fer!"
Obvious... (Score:2, Funny)
Wicked. (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine, iPod2 has WLAN
Re:Wicked. (Score:5, Insightful)
Crowd: *yells*
Singer (to promoter): What the hell is a node anyways?
Promoter: Don't worry about it, just go with it!
Singer (to crowd again): I said let me see those fuckin' nodes!
Crowd: *yells louder*
Singer: Fuck right. That's what I fuckin' like to hear. Now, for our next motherfuckin' song, I want to see the most massive, the most fuckin' atrocious motherfuckin' pit on this motherfuckin' planet.
Yeah, that scenario was implausible. Thus, I don't see supercomputers in concerts anytime soon.
Re:Wicked. (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone whos' got the 'share my compute cycles' checkbox set on their ipod2 automatically shares their ipod2's cpu cycles, again announced by rendezvous, with the rest of the system.
for the duration of that gig, the machines are all bound together, beowulf-style, to distribute the live recording of the event that is being produced for prosperity during the concert. some 'secrets and surprises' are thrown into the tracks too, just for grins.
at the end of the gig, everyone walks away with their own digital recording of the event, custom, unique, 'branded to the event'.
the whole thing was included in the price of admission, and open to anyone who walks into the concert arena with their boxes turned on
I can totally see this happening. In fact, if I had the resources, I'd start a company that does just this service for concerts and gigs and such
Re:Wicked. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wicked. (Score:2)
Of course, a concert promoter would say you're paying only for admittance. If concert promoters had their way, they'd charge you for the air you breathe while at the concert venue.
Re:Wicked. (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re:Wicked. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an old idea - it's called bootlegging, and with a few notable exceptions, almost all record labels oppose it. Think about it - this idea would be much cheaper and easier to implement if they just offered to send you a CD later and took $5 and a postal address at the T-shirt stall. Plus, they would get revenue from all the non-ipod owners as well, and could fix the parts where the vocalist sings out of tune.
So who's the idiot?
Re:Wicked. (Score:2)
Reminder, its a walkman.
Re:Wicked. (Score:2)
Even still, why would you? I'm having trouble coming up with a scenario that would need distributed computing to record anything.
HA! I can already do this without leaving home... (Score:4, Funny)
licenses (Score:5, Funny)
(It's 4:20am and I don't have any coffee; I'm sure of a lot of things at the moment.)
Re:licenses (Score:3, Funny)
Re:licenses (Score:5, Funny)
No, the first thing on their minds is the question "why aren't there any girls here?"
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
Re:licenses (Score:5, Funny)
The only reason girls avoid me is because they're jealous of my supercomputer.
Re:licenses (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:licenses (Score:2)
Article Text (Score:4, Informative)
By JOHN MARKOFF
Published: February 23, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 22 ? Some class science projects get out of hand.
That is certainly the case with Patrick Miller's graduate course in do-it-yourself supercomputing at the University of San Francisco. On April 3, his students plan to assemble the first "flash mob supercomputer" in the school gym.
While brainstorming about how to build a home-brew computer powerful enough to be added to a list of the world's 500 fastest computers, Mr. Miller and his students, along with Gregory D. Benson, an associate professor of computer science, came up with the idea of an electronic barn-raising. They decided to build on the concept of flash mobs, the sudden Internet-organized gatherings with no particular purpose that became an unlikely fad last summer.
Last week, the class put out a call for about 1,200 volunteers to bring their computers to the Koret Gym here for a day and plug them into a shared high-speed network.
"This is what happens when crazy ideas catch fire and people say, `Wait, there is nothing to stop this,' " said Mr. Miller, who is a lecturer at the university and a computer scientist at the Center for Applied Scientific Computing at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
There are already many Internet-connected virtual supercomputers, like the SETI@home project, which uses the spare computing cycles on the personal computers of volunteers to hunt for signs of alien civilizations. Several universities have shown that it is possible to hook hundreds of off-the-shelf personal computers together to create supercomputers. But until now no one has tried to build an instant supercomputer in one place.
"It struck me as being something of a 60's idea," said Dennis Allison, a founder of Dr. Dobbs, a Silicon Valley magazine for computer programmers. "This could easily be an idea from one of William Gibson's science-fiction novels, where everyone gathers in Grand Central station to save the world by plugging their machines into the Net."
Before stumbling onto the idea of the volunteer project, the class considered a variety of ways to make a cheap supercomputer, including buying many Microsoft Xbox game machines. However, the students would have needed to install the free Linux operating system on the machines to tie them together, and Microsoft has recently made that more difficult.
John Witchel, the graduate student who had the original idea of building a volunteer supercomputer, says he thinks flash mob computing will make it possible for high school students and community groups to harness computer power now available only to large corporations or government laboratories.
"We're trying to democratize supercomputing," Mr. Witchel said.
The group has high hopes for its gym machine. It plans to run a speed benchmark program known as Linpack. The group estimates that to make the next Top 500 list, scheduled to be released in June, the machine will need to reach a speed of about 550 gigaflops, or billions of mathematical operations per second. The No. 1 spot on the list is held by the Earth Simulator in Japan, which can run at more than 35 teraflops, or 35,000 gigaflops.
Jack Dongarra, a University of Tennessee computer scientist who helps maintain the Top 500 list, says the students have a shot at making the list, but it will not be easy.
"It could be that electrical power will be an issue," he said, adding that the slowest computer will limit the speed of the entire supercomputer. To make certain that they have enough speed, the students are asking that volunteers bring only computers with at least a 1.3-gigahertz Pentium or AMD processor and 256 megabytes of memory, requirements that most recent home machines will meet. Laptops are preferred because they use less power than desktop computers.
When all the machines are plugged together via donated high-speed networking switches, the students will be able to tack
Re:Article Text (Score:2)
Re:Article Text (Score:2)
Someone just used the word "power" to describe "Centrino." Obviously, this poor man is stuck in the 1980's.
Re:Article Text (Score:2)
Minimum requirements are 1.3 GHZ Pentium III/AMD equivalent or better with 256MB of RAM, a 100 Base-T network connection and a CD-ROM - laptops preferred.
At last something that qualifies (Score:4, Funny)
Twice over, even.
Re:At last something that qualifies (Score:2, Informative)
as in, two birds with one stone, etc.
Rock on! (Score:3, Funny)
Of course, that would require me to turn them off, first... and I'm not sure if a massive multiplayer game is incentive enough for that.
Perhaps if they provide free drinks...
Can you provide...... (Score:3, Funny)
Need not have transmission voltages, IEC leads will suffice.....
Printer friendly flash-free link (Score:5, Informative)
I'm there! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm there! (Score:3, Funny)
I can't say for sure. Let's hope for their sake that somebody brings a keyboard with a pi button on it, otherwise the whole damn thing will be a waste.
Re:I'm there! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm there! (Score:5, Insightful)
You've either never been to a significantly large LAN party or are incredibly lucky. Getting x,000 randomly selected laptops to even all communicate together properly for the benchmark will be a major undertaking, nevermind doing any useful work in the amount of time allotted. The planners give the impression of being quite organized with their pre-made Knoppix disks but I assure you there will be something to gum up the works. This leads to a whole new discussion of why can't PC's be plug-n-go appliances after 20+ years, but nevermind that now...
Reg. Free Link (Score:2, Informative)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/161702_f
I'd make it clickable but the submission mechanism is being funky right now...
- Neil Wehneman
Re:Reg. Free Link (Score:2)
Other Practical Uses are Bound to Surface... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Other Practical Uses are Bound to Surface... (Score:2, Funny)
I was pretty much right alongside the whole idea until you typed that last bit. Having heard that, I'm thinking you might want to reexamine your plan a bit.
Re:Other Practical Uses are Bound to Surface... (Score:4, Funny)
Great idea! If everyone were to turn up with a model rocket, we could strap them all to a chair, and blast someone into orbit. It's bound to work.
Laptops preferred? (Score:4, Funny)
Watch out for those basketball players... (Score:3, Funny)
What's amusing is that people are encouraged to bring laptops, and are then expected to play games that way...
Re:Watch out for those basketball players... (Score:5, Informative)
On a related note, I've never seen anyone on /. mention iBuyPower [ibuypower.com]. Their prices are $1000 less than Alienware, and probably a few hundred less than a Sager or Clevo. They really are in a (price) class of their own.
Check out one of their laptops [ibuypower.com] compared to an equivalent Alienware [alienware.com].
Strikes me odd (Score:2)
That's just what I was wondering.
SkyNet is coming!!! (Score:3, Funny)
Better get those EMPs ready though, I'm expecting robots from both Terminator and Matrix to come to life after a few days.
GO USF/DONS (Score:5, Informative)
Whats the CD for? (Score:5, Informative)
The first time ... NOT (Score:5, Informative)
More info... [heise.de]
Re:The first time ... NOT (Score:2, Funny)
> a thing.
Yeah, but now the media has invented a stupid name for it. But yes, it is a little late 1990s, isn't it.
Re:The first time ... NOT (Score:4, Insightful)
Why not combine it with wardriving? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Why not combine it with wardriving? (Score:2, Informative)
The next step at scientific conferences (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The next step at scientific conferences (Score:2)
Then we're gonna... (Score:5, Funny)
From the FlashMob FAQ:
"How do I setup my own flashmob supercomputer? First and foremost, if you can come to FlashMob I -- there's no substitute for first hand experience. Otherwise, start here and get some experience running a one node flashmob. Then run two. Then run ten. Then take over the world."
We're gonna to do it on your computer, then two computers, then ten computers, then your neighborhood. And then we're gonna do it at USF, then California, and then we'll take over the world! YEEEEEEAAARRRRGGHHH!!!
Re:Then we're gonna... (Score:2)
been there done this ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:been there done this ... (Score:2, Interesting)
OK, here is the deal (Score:5, Interesting)
Here is the deal... to use a hotspot you have to download a package that connects your computer to the local "grid". In exchange for network access the grid gets your spare CPU cycles. The best hotspots could leverage the power of hundreds of notebooks, and then resell this on the market as a computing resource commodity, for multiplayer games, data crunching, whatever.
Though... I'm running a high fever and this is perhaps the fruit of a deranged mind.
Re:OK, here is the deal (Score:2, Insightful)
It will never work? (Score:5, Insightful)
It could actually work.
Dorm Clusters (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Dorm Clusters (Score:5, Interesting)
A similar but slightly less pie-in-the-sky thing would be to use the lab computers for batch processing during the night. Lab computers tend to be centrally administered and perhaps identical computers could be grouped together so that CPU cycles aren't wasted to the extent that they would be in a homogeneous environment.
Re:Dorm Clusters (Score:3, Informative)
Whatever happened to proof reading? (Score:3, Funny)
>your computers' firepower
>Plus they'll be prizes
>the first of it's kind
>least one students thesis
>By in large
>software for it's problem set
>information on Flash Mob Computing computing
>couldn't finish it's job
>better at solving certain types of problems then grid computers
Re:Whatever happened to proof reading? (Score:2)
>your computers' firepower
There is nothing wrong with the first one you mentioned. I would suggest finding another proofreader.
Robot Genitals Burning Your Retinas (Score:3, Funny)
When you get home (Score:3, Funny)
A better name for this project might be Flash Petri Dish.
Tough one to call... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tough one to call... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Tough one to call... (Score:2, Informative)
--
lds
Re:Tough one to call... (Score:2)
SETI@HOME is #1 at 63 TeraFLOPS (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Tough one to call... (Score:2)
Re:Tough one to call... (Score:5, Insightful)
That being said, it doesn't seem like all that serious an enterprise. Good luck to them, and if they have fun, hey all the better.
So many geeks, so few outlets... (Score:2, Funny)
1200 laptops could be a big problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, let's generously assume that each laptop is drawing half an amp at 110 volts. At 1200 laptops, that's 600 amps. The circuit breakers in my house trip at 15 amps, but I'll generously assume this facility has 50 amp wall circuits. That would still require 12 entire circuits, plus a safety factor, nevermind all my generous back-of-envelope assumptions.
Okay, so assuming they've got a lot of extension cords, now we just have to deal with space. Let's assume, again, generously, that each person + computer + associated infrastructure needs only one square meter of floor space. This makes the space requirement equivalent to a 30m x 40m area, or about two World Cup soccer fields. I hope they've got one hell of a big gym.
Heat is, by comparison, a relatively minor issue. If the facility can handle a crowd that large, adding their low-power laptops is minor. People tend to dissipate about 100 watts anyway, so the laptops won't be the most significant source of difficulty.
It sounds like a very daunting task they have ahead of them. I hope they've already gotten these problems figured out, because this project sounds really cool.
Re:1200 laptops could be a big problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:1200 laptops could be a big problem (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Heat: If they expect to have 1200 people sitting in the bleachers with 1300+ MHz laptops running at 100% for the duration of a real benchmark, they'll have to expect a lot of burned laps.
2. Theft: If they have a designated hookup area for the computers (much more logistically feasible, ethernet-wise at least) they'll have a hard time getting all 1200 computers successfully reunited with 1200 owners. It'd be very easy to grab the wrong one "accidentally". Given t
Re:1200 laptops could be a big problem (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1200 laptops could be a big problem (Score:3, Informative)
a 30x40m soccer field?
But hey - since you called it soccer, I suppose you are US, so you are excused.
And for info - a standard soccerfield is between 90 and 120m long and 45 and 90m wide for national danish soccer matches.
For international mathces, the dimensions are: 100-110 x 64-75m
Or that would be a little longer than a football field, and quite a bit wider(I believe a football field is 53 yards wide)
Re:1200 laptops could be a big problem (Score:4, Informative)
600 amps is nothing for a place like this. I can get an 800 amp feed to my house, according to the nice folks at my local power company (and I'll be upgrading to that as part of my rewiring plan). 12 circuits is no big deal either. Think of the power requirements for holding concerts or any type of show, or just for lighting the place.
A place like that also probably has a house electrician on staff who knows the boards and how to get x amps from point A to point B. I doubt power is going to be the main issue holding them back on this.
Dan
Can't wait (Score:5, Funny)
New York Times Random Login Generator (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.majcher.com/nytview.html [majcher.com]
A javascriptlet there will allow you to generate a totally random login for viewing the article. Every Slashdotter which accesses the article should create a new random login in turn, filling their database with useless random login id's that are only used once and then forgotten about.
Re:New York Times Random Login Generator (Score:4, Insightful)
Thank you! That's some great thinking on your part!
Erm, well good luck....you'll need it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, but you require a minimum of a 100 Base-T connection. You want to create one of the world's top 100 supercomputers using Ethernet? Good luck in beating that latency, guys....next time, see if you can get a flash mob of infiniband vendors to come along for the ride.
Re:Erm, well good luck....you'll need it... (Score:5, Informative)
And that was using specially tuned low latency ethernet drivers and TCP stack under linux.
These guys have very very little chance of doing anything useful at all - which is a bit of a pity, but perhaps if they did just a little research first..
I wonder if they even have network switches that will efficiently route 1200 nodes.. let alone a decent plan to interconnect them.
The first step would be to use 1Gbit or faster concentration to some very smart switches to at least cut down the network blockage a little.. It won't help with the terrible latency, but will give them a little headroom at some vector lengths.
They will also suffer terribly from the differing speeds of nodes - I've yet to see a solution for linpack that distributes efficiently over a wide speed range of machines.
Of course, I bet in the end they just come up with a great SETI score, or something similar - something that would actually scale at all on a cluster like this.
Oh well, I wish them luck anyway.
What, no macs? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps I'm missing some fundamental requirement of cluster comptuing, but why wouldn't macs work? I'm sure a 1.25 ghz G4 could hold its own with the above mentioned. It can also run linux. College campuses seem to be a hotbed of mac users, so it seems that they would want to tap this. Does clustering require that all nodes be of the same architecture?
Re:What, no macs? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure the SOFTWARE aspect of this "Super Computer" but, uh... maybe the programmers are coding this in a Microsoft language...
Mentioned before is SETI@home (software distributed amongst many clients) and another (I'm too lazy to scroll back up and read). This "Psuedo-Supercomputer" aspect is mearly a distributed software application which shares data over a network. All hosts must run a program to "Link" them together in such a manner that they distribute the computing. Therefore, the pl
Re:What, no macs? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What, no macs? (Score:2)
Re:What, no macs? (Score:4, Informative)
Origins of "flash mob" (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting term "flash mob". The first time I encountered it was in the writing of sci-fi author, Larry Niven. In some of his series personal teleportation becomes ubiquitous giving rise to the 'flash mob'.
When a news broadcast reports a certain kind of story (riot, fire, etc) people start to teleport into watch the fun. The news reports the growing mob and before long it reaches critical mass and turns into a real riot as people take advantage by teleporting in and doing a quick bit of looting.
I'm not sure if Larry originated the term though ? Anyone know an ealier source ? Is it a 'real' phenomenon ?
Re:Origins of "flash mob" (Score:3, Informative)
yes and no.
Flash Mobs DO exist these days, but generally aren't disaster tourists. Yet, anyways. Modern Flash Mobs consist of large numbers of peoples gathering somewhere, doing something silly for about 5 minutes and then leaving again, just as quick. An example I heard of some time ago was at a Toys R Us store ages ago with a huge mock-up dinosaur. A Flash Mob gathered before the dinosaur and worshipped it for 5 minutes. And I'm not talking about quiet, solemn worship, here. After 5 minutes the crowd wa
Electrical power could be an issue... (Score:5, Funny)
Fly in the Ointment? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Fly in the Ointment? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you are so worried just remove the HDD from the machine you take, and you won't have any problems?
When i saw the title... (Score:2, Funny)
Usefullness? (Score:3, Insightful)
I've seen this sort of thing happen before: people devoting energy and money to what amounts to a technical fetish. The end state is a world where people like Robert G. Brown build themselves home beowulf clusters with no discernible purpose. (RGB: you're a nice guy and all, but I find it hard to believe that you need all that horsepower for personal use).
I'd rather see an article about broadband users organising themselves into a GLOBUS grid. For that matter, I'd like to see a comprehensive system for bug tracking MPICH (I've seen some weird bugs there). There's lots of things I'd like to see written about or developed. Tomorrows 'infinity + 1' Supercluster ain't it.
Stupid (Score:2, Insightful)
From flashmobcomputing.org: "Today, supercomputing is controlled largely by governmental organizations, academic research institutions, animation studios, and recently human genome companies. This means that the problems that get solved by supercomputers are narrow in scope and tightly controlled. We want to change that."
This is so stupid.
Some Distributed Supercomputers... (Score:2)
It's all about the latency... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe it's possible, but I think it would require a pretty creative network topology and some pretty clever re-structuring of the linpack benchmark (which is allowed by the Top 500 list rules, BTW).
how is this a flash mob? (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe they could contribute something ... (Score:4, Interesting)