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'Petaflop' supercomputer is decommissioned


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A US supercomputer called Roadrunner has been switched off by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The machine was the first to operate at "petaflop pace" - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second - when it launched in 2008.

It has been used to model viruses and distant parts of the universe, as well as in nuclear weapons research.

It remains one of the fastest supercomputers in the world, but has been replaced by something even faster.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21993132

In 10-20 years, we'll have these in our phones. :D

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http://www.bbc.co.uk...nology-21993132

In 10-20 years, we'll have these in our phones. :D

But we'll still love poetry and smile when children laugh. Humans can be amazingly adaptable but they never really change at the core.
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So Petaflop was supposed to be a complimentary term, was it? No wonder it never took off with such a discouraging name. :(

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Why stop using it if its so fast. Sounds like a waste of money to just dismantle it.

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Um...geez, guys? It's one thing to be reluctant to follow a link to an article, but come on, the answer's right in the provided clip.

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I think "Petaflop" sounds rather like one of the many less than successful initiatives from everyone's favourite ANimal Welfare organisation, like trying to re-brand fish as "Sea kittens" and so on. :-/

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I think "Petaflop" sounds rather like one of the many less than successful initiatives from everyone's favourite ANimal Welfare organisation, like trying to re-brand fish as "Sea kittens" and so on. :-/

A 'petaflop' is a unit of measurement. From the quoted text of the article: 'first to operate at "petaflop pace" - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second'. The name of the computer was 'Roadrunner'.

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A 'petaflop' is a unit of measurement. From the quoted text of the article: 'first to operate at "petaflop pace" - the equivalent of 1,000 trillion calculations per second'. The name of the computer was 'Roadrunner'.

it was a tongue in cheek comment and was not intended as a serious remark. Anyway, what idiot invented such a stupid word?

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Words like that come from mixing Greek prefixes with English roots. Stick to one language when inventing words.

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Since when (going off on a linguistic tangent) has 'flop' been a unit of time? Is this one of those amusing words that the Scientific fraternity have come up with to show that they're actually really crazy guys?

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Well it is somewhat better described as a flop than as a unit of time. Once they would say so many petaflops per second, but that got lost.

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