Florida Polytechnic University, Lakeland, Florida. Florida Poly resides on a 170-acre campus designed by architect Santiago Calatrava. The university's Innovation, Science and Technology (IST) Building is home to a supercomputer, 3-D printing lab, cyber gaming and media lab, cyber security lab, robotics lab, big data lab, and digital library.

FORTRAN program (to compute probabilistic music) executed on a CDC Cyber 6600 supercomputer in 1974. The Cyber 6600 "supercomputer" offered 0.5 Mflops; today's iPad offers 800,000 Mflops at 1/10,000th the cost!

Pi Day is an annual celebration of the mathematical constant π (pi). Pi Day is observed on March 14 (3/14 in the month/day format) since 3, 1, and 4 are the first three significant digits of π.

It was founded in 1988 by Larry Shaw, an employee of the Exploratorium. Celebrations often involve eating pie or holding pi recitation competitions. In 2009, the United States House of Representatives supported the designation of Pi Day. UNESCO's 40th General Conference designated Pi Day as the International Day of Mathematics in November 2019.

The number π is a mathematical constant. It is defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, and it also has various equivalent definitions. It appears in many formulas in all areas of mathematics and physics and the earliest known use of the Greek letter π to represent the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter was by Welsh mathematician William Jones in 1706. It is approximately equal to 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "π" since the mid-18th century, and is spelled out as "pi". It is also referred to as Archimedes' constant

Being an irrational number, π cannot be expressed as a common fraction, although fractions such as 22/7 are commonly used to approximate it. Equivalently, its decimal representation never ends and never settles into a permanently repeating pattern. Its decimal (or other base) digits appear to be randomly distributed, and are conjectured to satisfy a specific kind of statistical randomness.

It is known that π is a transcendental number: it is not the root of any polynomial with rational coefficients. The transcendence of π implies that it is impossible to solve the ancient challenge of squaring the circle with a compass and straightedge.

Ancient civilizations, including the Egyptians and Babylonians, required fairly accurate approximations of π for practical computations. Around 250 BC, the Greek mathematician Archimedes created an algorithm to approximate π with arbitrary accuracy. In the 5th century AD, Chinese mathematics approximated π to seven digits, while Indian mathematics made a five-digit approximation, both using geometrical techniques. The first exact formula for π, based on infinite series, was discovered a millennium later, when in the 14th century the Madhava–Leibniz series was discovered in Indian mathematics.

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Il 14 marzo (o 3,14) è il giorno del Pi greco: una festa per chi ama la matematica

Il simbolo che conosciamo fu usato per la prima volta circa 250 anni fa, dal matematico gallese William Jones nel trattato A New Introduction to Mathematics (1706). π è l'iniziale dei termini greci περιφέρεια, "periferia", e περίμετρος, "perimetro", con riferimento alla circonferenza; ma anche del filosofo e matematico Pitagora. Prima di allora per riferirsi alla costante si ricorreva a complesse perifrasi come: "la quantità che quando si moltiplica per il diametro, dà la circonferenza".

IL CALCOLO DEI SUOI DECIMALI HA FATTO IMPAZZIRE INTERE GENERAZIONI. π è irrazionale, cioè non esprimibile come una frazione di due numeri interi: le 100 cifre riportate qui sopra sono insomma uno sforzo contenuto, rispetto a un numero che procede in apparenza all'infinito. Il record attuale di decimali verificati è di 22.459.157.718.361, frutto del lavoro di un centinaio di giorni di un supercomputer svizzero.

Dr. Sarah Chen had always been fascinated by the mysteries of the universe. She spent her entire career researching and developing technologies to unlock the secrets of the cosmos.

However, there was one question that had always eluded her: ‘What is the purpose of life?’

For years, she worked tirelessly, studying various theories and philosophies, but all she ever found were incomplete answers and endless debates.

Frustrated, she decided to take matters into her own hands and design a supercomputer that would finally solve the ultimate question.

It took her over a decade to develop the machine, but finally, it was complete. The computer, which she named "Genesis," was the most advanced system in the world. It could solve complex equations that would take humans decades to unravel.

With a deep breath, Dr. Chen typed in the ultimate question and hit the enter key. Genesis whirred to life, its screens flashing with images and text.

For hours, Dr. Chen watched in amazement as the machine processed information, comparing countless theories and analysing billions of lines of code.

Finally, Genesis beeped, and a message appeared on the screen.

“The purpose of life is to discover the purpose of life.”

With an exasperated scream, Dr Chen shuddered in dismay, realising that her work had only just begun.

For more AI inspired micro stories please visit neural-narrative.blogspot.com/

Horseshoe Falls in Tasmania's Mount Field National Park - taken last month. I only got a couple of images of this waterfall because the mist was so thick it made the front of the lens all wet in just a few moments.

This is the first upload on my new computer. We'll call it a supercomputer because that's how it feels right now ... I have been using the same workhorse for years now and for the last year or so it has been struggling and crashing often enough for me to get worried. So I ordered a computer that will see me out for a few years. Processing this image in Photoshop and Nik Software was so easy with absolutely no lag. Even the process of turning on my old computer could take around 30 minutes and would cancel out my early morning energy. This one just springs into life in a matter of seconds thanks to its i9 processor. Everything is ... well faster. A lot faster.

I remember this feeling well - i'll leave the image first uploaded with my last computer in the comments. So here's to increased productivity and a new era.

This is a snapshot of a supercomputer simulation of cosmological structure formation. The simulation contains a region of space 40 million light-years on a side at 2 billion years after the Big Bang. Each step in brightness represents a factor of 10 change in density, with the brightest regions being the location of galaxy clusters. The simulation closely matches observational data, for which it is more difficult to take a visually appealing image.

Credit: Aaron Day and ENZO collaboration

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

This is my entry for RogueOlympics 2025 Round 6, with the topic "Attacke! / Attack!". The RogueOlympics are a build contest by the RogueBricks Community, with each week featuring a new topic and a part limit of just 101 pieces (which I used exactly).

I built an homage to the film WarGames. It shows David Lightman supposedly hacking into the server of a videogame company to play a round of "Global Thermonuclear War". But unbeknownst to him he is actually communicating with a government supercomputer that takes his game a little too serious and is unable to distinguish between the simulation and a real Soviet attack.

"All their names have something to do with their buoyancy qualities. Why they've never run out of words to describe that, I have no idea."

- Sav Fel

Sentient biomechanical supercomputers created by the the Forerunner to repair and maintain their technological marvels. Known for their docile and diligent nature. Nicknamed "Engineers" by humanity.

Brickshelf Gallery

It's a Huragok from the Halo universe. Always wanted to build one of these guys since I first saw them in Halo 3: ODST. Settled on doing one of the armored ones since I felt the CCBS shells lent well to that design. Huge thanks to my wife and J6Crash who both helped with the edit.

We had a fun evening at the Atmo Supercomputer Party in Berkeley, California. Atmo just finished their first product, to be delivered to Uganda. It has groundbreaking software to predict weather using a trained AI model, a first in this industry. That means substantial cost reduction while keeping the accuracy of weather forecast.

The company hired Frank Stephenson to design the exterior of the supercomputer. He also designed most McLaren sport cars, some Ferraris, Maserati, Mini Cooper, BMW X5, and the Fiat 500. Frank flew in from London to attended the party. He was intrigued by my vintage Canon "Dream Lens", so I offered to take a portrait of him. We walked outside so that we get the nice blur of leaves in the back.

I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photos from a JPG exposure, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.

Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.

-- ƒ/0.95, 50 mm, 1/45 sec, ISO 800, A7 II, Canon 50mm f0.95, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC8381_hdrj1pho1bal1e.jpg

-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography

I wanted to title this "the sun, moon and stars" but you can't really see the sun and the stars are invisible in Chicago. But that tower! That's everything, delivering the sun, moon and stars to our mini supercomputer slabs.

Explored 3/11/2022

on the left is a cooling system for a supercomputer (this building is the Faculty of cybernetics and computational mathematics of Moscow University)

We had a fun evening at the Atmo Supercomputer Party in Berkeley, California. Atmo just finished their first product, to be delivered to Uganda. The supercomputer has groundbreaking software to predict weather using a trained AI model, a first in this industry. That means substantial cost reduction while keeping the accuracy of weather forecast. Anna talked about how to do business with foreign governments.

I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photos from a JPG exposure, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.

Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.

-- ƒ/0.95, 50 mm, 1/1000 sec, ISO 800, A7 II, Canon 50mm f0.95, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC8201_hdrj1pho1bal1d.jpg

-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography

This is another 30 second exposure from the multimedia presentation Evolution by Laura Heath and Eddy Herringson. My title, “The Measure of Time”, both stresses the fact that this photograph is a completely separate work of abstract art, and that evolution itself requires time - plenty of it. The life we see around us is but a snapshot of a much longer duration (we measure geological time in millions of years and cosmic time in the billions). But what if we could see the entire universe unfold before us like this 3 minute and 30 seconds multimedia show?

Perhaps there is a way that science is discovering where it may be possible to get an inkling of the laws that shape our evolving cosmos. Independent physicist, Stephen Wolfram, has developed a computational theory of the universe that he first presented publicly 13 years ago: “Computing a theory of everything”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P7717-XOQ

This short TED talk is incredible, but you can imagine how much more powerful our supercomputers have become in the meantime. As the physicist Paul Davies once said, if we can find a theory of everything we will have discovered the mind of God.

Some old communications technology, no longer required now we've all got supercomputers in our pockets...

...bigotry. It could also mean independence of greed, hatred, and delusion, as a friend put it. We all could benefit from more interdependence, adding kindness, inclusiveness, and compassion.

We were a very diverse bunch of people at the Atmo Supercomputer Party in Berkeley, California. Atmo just finished their first product, to be delivered to Uganda. The supercomputer has groundbreaking software to predict weather using a trained AI model, a first in this industry. That means substantial cost reduction while keeping the accuracy of weather forecast.

I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photos from a JPG exposure, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.

Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.

-- ƒ/0.95, 50 mm, 1/500 sec, ISO 800, A7 II, Canon 50mm f0.95, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC8312b_hdrj1pho1bal1e.jpg

-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography

We had a fun evening at the Atmo Supercomputer Party in Berkeley, California. Atmo just finished their first product, to be delivered to Uganda. The supercomputer has groundbreaking software to predict weather using a trained AI model, a first in this industry. That means substantial cost reduction while keeping the accuracy of weather forecast. A DJ entertained the guests after the talks.

I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photos from a JPG exposure, blended them selectively, and carefully adjusted the color balance and curves. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.

Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.

-- ƒ/0.95, 50 mm, 1/250 sec, ISO 800, A7 II, Canon 50mm f0.95, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC8351_hdrj1pho1bal1d.jpg

-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography

The United States Air Forces' Ryan X-13 Vertijet from 1957 could take off vertically, hover, and land on a launchpad. In the days before supercomputers could compensate in a nanosecond for sliding, this aircraft needed and had the stability of a tail.

This visualization shows early test renderings of a global computational model of Earth's atmosphere based on data from NASA's Goddard Earth Observing System Model, Version 5 (GEOS-5). This particular run, called Nature Run 2, was run on a supercomputer, spanned 2 years of simulation time at 30 minute intervals, and produced Petabytes of output.

The visualization spans a little more than 7 days of simulation time which is 354 time steps. The time period was chosen because a simulated category-4 typhoon developed off the coast of China.

The 7 day period is repeated several times during the course of the visualization.

Credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

Read more or download here: svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/goto?4180

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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Xeon 3.0 GHz Dell Cluster

2,560 Processors, 3 GB Memory/Node

Peak Performance 15.36 TF

Top 500 List Debut: #4 Fastest Supercomputer in the World

With the start of the Mocathalon, and the release of the categories, I knew I had to build a SHIP for category #1.

________________

The universe was believed to be a completely organic system for millenium, and the humans within the system were merely simple minded bystanders.

After many futile years of study, the Scientific Institute of Typhon (SIOT) broke the code.

Toppling the "All is natural" belief that ranged through the galaxy, SIOT figured out that within every strand of DNA lies a code. Binary if you will.

Thus the new way to travel rapidly across the galaxy was created, and soon became known as Binary travel to the hardcore space jockeys.

There are a couple more views over on Mocpages if you want to see the SHIP closer up.

www.mocpages.com/moc.php/356232

Oh, and yeah, this is another five-six day SHIP build.

: D

EDIT: Big thanks to Simon (Si-Mocs) for taking the time out of his busy Iron Builder schedule to edit one of the pictures of the Baldwin for me.

: D

Just one small piece of the new Aurora exascale supercomputer at Argonne. And, yes, that is plumbing you see in those cabinets. This machine is water-cooled...

Aurora supercomputer racks. Theory and Computing Sciences (TCS) building 240. Argonne National Laboratory Open House 2023, Argonne, IL.

In 2022, we enjoyed a memorable evening at an Atmo Supercomputer celebration in Berkeley, California. The company had completed their inaugural product, destined for Uganda. Their innovative technology uses an AI model to forecast weather, a pioneering approach in the industry. This advancement significantly reduces costs while maintaining the reliability and precision of weather predictions.

The company hired Frank Stephenson to design the exterior of the supercomputer. He also designed most McLaren sport cars, some Ferraris, Maserati, Mini Cooper, BMW X5, and the Fiat 500. Frank flew in from London to attended the party. He was intrigued by my vintage Canon "Dream Lens", so I offered to take a portrait of him. We walked outside so that we get the nice blur of leaves in the back.

I processed a photographic and a balanced HDR photos from a JPG exposure, blended them selectively, carefully adjusted the color balance and curves, and desaturated the image. I welcome and appreciate constructive comments.

Thank you for visiting - ♡ with gratitude! Fave if you like it, add comments below, like the Facebook page, order beautiful HDR prints at qualityHDR.com.

-- ƒ/0.95, 50 mm, 1/45 sec, ISO 800, Sony A7 II, Canon 50mm f0.95, HDR, 1 RAW exposure, _DSC8381_hdrj1pho1bal1f.jpg

-- CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, © 2022 Peter Thoeny, Quality HDR Photography

This is one of many supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA. The U.S. Department of Energy emblem hangs above this Cori. I was one of a small number of photographers selected to participate in the May 16, 2018 #LBNLPhotoWalk.

"Now listen to me very carefully."

('T-800' by NECA)

Florida Poly resides on a 170-acre[6] campus designed by architect Santiago Calatrava. The university's Innovation, Science and Technology (IST) Building is home to a supercomputer,[7] 3-D printing lab, cyber gaming and media lab, cyber security lab, robotics lab, big data lab, and digital library. Florida Poly is the first university whose main library is completely digital.[8]

I was outside the other day when there was a sudden flurry of wings around me and a ruckus to go with it. A pair of blue jays lit into the nearest pine squabbling about something. Blue jays are not songbirds... when they go into these kinds of fits, they’re downright obnoxious. From among them, something big and silent swooped down to the lower crape myrtle right in front of me… a white-tailed hawk. For as large a bird as it was, within a few beats of its wings, it threaded itself through the woods canopy so fast the bickering jays had no chance to catch up.

What was true for that raptor is true for this aptly named Air Force fighter as well, incredible speed and agility. Here, the pilot is pushing it up to near transonic speeds rapidly after a slow flight demonstration. Such speed creates a zone in the ambient air that rapidly lowers the temperature. On warm, humid days, it can reach the dew point and condense the vapor around it. It becomes almost mirror-like here, reflecting the blue of the sky and obscuring the detail of the aircraft.

This F-22 Raptor is from the 1st Fighter Wing out of Langley AFB, Virginia, the same outfit my dad was with when they flew the F-106 Delta Dart, and my younger brother Paul when they flew F-15 Eagles. The 1st Fighter Wing has roots all the way back to World War I when it was known as the “Hat In the Ring” Squadron. It's at the Wings Over Wayne Air Show demonstrating why it's likely the world's best tactical fighter.

The Raptor is a 5th-Generation fighter capable of stealth... that doesn't mean you can't see it, obviously, but most fire-control radars and infrared detection systems have a hard time with it. Recently in Syria, F-22s pulled right up to the most modern Russian fighters without them even knowing they were there. In the recent Red Flag exercise (think Air Force Top Gun), F-22s and the new F-35s scored 20-1 kill ratios against very heavily defended scenarios. The 5th-Generation aircraft even caused some psychological issues among 4th-Generation pilots... while some radar seemed to indicate stealth aircraft were within their patrol area, there was no way to pin down exactly where they were... and it's a big sky. Many of those pilots had no way of interdiction... everything in sight became the "stealth fighters", causing many mistakes from those pilots. It's tough to train against that, knowing that what you can't see likely already has you targeted. The reverse of this understanding is fascinating, too. The F-22s and F-35s are outstanding air superiority aircraft, but they're also flying supercomputers with many passive sensors built into the skin of each fighter capable of sharing data with any aircraft with the datalink... when they pass information to 4th-Generation aircraft, everyone gets better at the business of being a combat pilot. As former Air Force, I can justly say I'm glad they're on our side.

Remember when computers were monstrous and terrifying? This supercomputer offers a sharp retro styling to fit perfectly in your aerospace control room, underground villain headquarters, or time-travel tableau.

Citizen Brick premium printed LEGO® compatible bricks. We offer the finest quality Minifigs, bricks, and tiles around. No labels, decals, hand painting, or ink jet digital. Printed like the real thing using authentic LEGO® parts. For the serious AFOL model builder.

citizenbrick.com

A model I built on demand for a enthusiast Batman customer. Don't fool yourself, this is not a complete Batcave but just the computer section.

Building instructions for this model are NOW for sale in my shop :

www.baronsat.net/baronshop/Lego-Batcomputer-moc-instructi...

"The Terminator's an infiltration unit: part man, part machine. Underneath, it's a hyperalloy combat chassis, microprocessor-controlled. Fully armored; very tough. But outside, it's living human tissue: flesh, skin, hair, blood - grown for the cyborgs."

('T-800' by NECA)

Diorama by RK

"He's not a man - a machine. Terminator, Cyberdyne Systems Model 101."

('T-800' by NECA)

Diorama by RK

A NASA Center for Climate Simulation supercomputer model that shows the flow of ‪#‎Blizzard2016‬ thru Sunday.

Learn more here: go.nasa.gov/1WBm547

NASA image use policy.

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center enables NASA’s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA’s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency’s mission.

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This composite image shows M84, a massive elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Cluster, about 55 million light years from Earth. Hot gas around M84 is shown in a Chandra X-ray Observatory image in blue and a radio image from the Very Large Array is shown in red. A background image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is shown in yellow and white.

A number of bubbles are visible in the hot gas, outlined with blue X-ray emission. These bubbles were blown by relativistic particles generated by the central supermassive black hole in M84. These particles travel outwards in the form of a two-sided jet. Because smaller bubbles are found inside large bubbles, the impression given by the image is that of Russian dolls, where smaller dolls can be found inside large ones. These nested bubbles provide clear evidence for repeated outbursts from the central black hole.

Supercomputer simulations of the interaction of supermassive black holes with surrounding gas can explain how such "Russian dolls" are created. The simulations reveal the nested bubbles associated with the termination of the jet and their complex interaction with the surrounding gas, somewhat similar to the effervescent bubbles in a glass of champagne.

Image credit: X-ray (NASA/CXC/MPE/A.Finoguenov et al.); Radio (NSF/NRAO/VLA/ESO/R.A.Laing et al); Optical (SDSS)

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"In the Year of Darkness, 2029, the rulers of this planet devised the ultimate plan. They would reshape the Future by changing the Past. The plan required something that felt no pity. No pain. No fear. Something unstoppable. They created The Terminator."

('T-800' by NECA / 'Police Station Assault' )

The Reborn Child - 2089 - The World According To JOHN

by Daniel Arrhakis (2025)

"There was a nuclear war. A few years from now, all this, this whole place, everything, it's gone. Just gone. There were survivors. Here, there. Nobody even knew who started it. It was the machines, Sarah."

('T-800 Endoskeleton' by NECA)

Diorama by RK

The number 42 is, in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, "The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", calculated by an enormous supercomputer over a period of 7.5 million years.

---------------

the process control room of a decommissioned chemical plant

"You're the one livin' in a fuckin' dream ...! 'Cause I know when it happens! It happens!"

('Sarah Connor' by NECA / Ultimate line)

Diorama by RK

Solitude, Tranquillity, Serenity, Peace, I'm Myself Better When I'm Alone With Myself and my own Thoughts. How many have stood here and thought the same over the thousand of years and took comfort to Reflect! Answers to questions we long to know, never to be told.

To quote the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy from the supercomputer, Deep Thought, specially built for this purpose. It takes Deep Thought 7½ million years to compute and check the answer, which turns out to be 42. Deep Thought points out that the answer seems meaningless because the beings who instructed it never actually knew what the Question was.

This is the Edison supercomputer, one of many supercomputer arrays, photographed at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center at the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab in Berkeley, CA. #LBNLPhotoWalk

DOTS (Drone Operating Tank System) is essentially a supercomputer with treads and guns. DOTS is a Mid-long range tank as it does not have the armor necessary to take on battles on the front-line, for defensive capability's it has several flares and smoke dispensers, but for its main ability it uses a form of invisibility which it uses to escape unnecessary and dangerous battles. This technology can only last for so long which means the tank has to sacrifice potential firepower, armor and offensive ability's for a powerful engine as to power its invisibility, fast movement and the supercomputer that controls its drones. DOTS acts as a hivemind which controls its nearby drones allowing for the drones to communicate to one another effectively and efficiently. Without a DOTS the drones wouldn't be able to operate as desired and wouldn't be able communicate to each other. The drones DOTS operates also help protect itself, mainly the DDS (Defensive Deployment System) The DDS is a four wheeled drone which carries smokes, flares and APS soft kill launchers which help aid other allies and DOTS. The other two drones DOTS operates are the RSA (Rotary Small Arms) and the RMD (Rotary Missile Drone)

For its own firepower the DOTS has one main canon and a 50CAL anti personal turret.

"Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."

('T-800' by NECA / 'Tech Noir' )

Completely ignoring the BBC Weather App, I headed to Curbar edge for sunrise on Friday morning. Im so glad I did. I swear since all of the publicity put out by the MET office about their investment in the new weather 'supercomputer', their forecasts are less reliable. I think ill keep an eye on pine cones and cows lying down from now on.

www.davefieldhousephotography.com

Space Science image of the week:

ESA’s Euclid mission, to be launched in 2020, is set to provide a unique window into the evolution of our 13.8 billion year-old Universe. It will map the history of the Universe’s structure by studying billions of galaxies. In this way, it will be able to probe the nature of invisible dark matter, which makes itself known by the forces it exerts on ordinary matter, and the mysterious dark energy that drives the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

In order to prepare for the huge and complex outpouring of measurements, teams of Euclid scientists have created the largest simulated galaxy catalogue ever produced, the Euclid Flagship mock galaxy catalogue.

It is based on a record-setting supercomputer simulation of two trillion dark matter particles, and contains more than two billion galaxies distributed over the 3D space that Euclid will survey.

The simulation reproduces with exquisite precision the emergence of the large-scale structure of the Universe – galaxies and galaxy clusters within the wispy network of the cosmic web that comprises both dark and ‘normal’ matter.

The simulation also mimics the complex properties that real sources display, such as their shapes, colours and luminosities, as well as the ‘gravitational lensing’ distortions that affect the light emitted by distant galaxies as it travels to us.

An excerpt of the simulation is shown in this image, spanning from today’s local Universe (left) back to when it was about 3 billion years old (right), when clusters of galaxies were beginning to form.

Zooming in provides finer and finer detail. Central galaxies, which populate the centre of dark matter ‘halos’, are coloured green. Satellite galaxies, which reside in the most massive halos in the highest density peaks of the underlying dark matter, are indicated in red.

Armed with this new virtual universe, scientists will be able to best prepare for the mission and also eventually assess its performance. Moreover, it will be an essential tool to develop the data processing and the science analysis software needed for such a data-heavy mission.

The release of the simulated galaxy catalogue was announced by the Euclid Consortium on 7 June.

The simulation was developed on the Piz Daint supercomputer, hosted by the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre, by a team of scientists at the University of Zurich led by Joachim Stadel. The teams that built the resulting catalogue are based at Institut de Ciències de L’Espai (ICE, IEEC-CSIC) and Port d’Informació Científica (PIC) in Barcelona, in collaboration with the Cosmological Simulations Working Group led by Pablo Fosalba (ICE, IEEC-CSIC) and Romain Teyssier (University of Zurich).

Credit: J. Carretero (PIC), P. Tallada (PIC), S. Serrano (ICE) and the Euclid Consortium Cosmological Simulations SWG

"Three billion human lives ended on August 29th, 1997. The survivors of the nuclear fire called the war Judgment Day. They lived only to face a new nightmare: the war against the machines."

('Sarah Connor' by NECA / Ultimate line)

...to life, the universe and everything

a milestone on mallorca.

The title is a reference to the book 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' from Douglas Adams, one of my favourite British authors. He died much too early in May 2001 at the age of 49

The number 42 is, in the book, the "Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything", calculated by an enormous supercomputer named Deep Thought over a period of 7.5 million years. Unfortunately, no one knows what the question is. Thus, to calculate the Ultimate Question, a special computer the size of a small planet was built from organic components and named "Earth"

Wikipedia English: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams

Wikipedia Deutsch: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams

Thanks to everyone who stopped by to watch or leave a comment/ award :)

All my photos are © All Rights Reserved. The pictures are for viewing, not to be downloaded and shared on any other site or for personal use without my explicit permission. Thank you! :)

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"We'll go all the way."

('Sarah Connor' by NECA / Ultimate line)

Diorama by RK

"The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves."

('Sarah Connor' by NECA / Ultimate line)

Diorama by RK

"Is it dead?"

"Terminated."

('T-1000' by McFarlane Toys / Movie Maniacs Series 4)

Diorama by RK

It all started with the mindlink.

Some tech company had a breakthrough, they managed to make a direct link between the human brain and a computer using some fancy electric process. I don't know the details, it's all classified and copyrighted, no one knows how it works. No one even knew they had done it until they finished programming the entire world and then some into a couple thousand supercomputers. No small feat, it must have taken a while. Rumor has it the mindlink tech was around for nearly two centuries and then some before they were done. I can't imagine how they kept it a secret for so long. But I can wonder.

Anyway, once it was out they got some people to try it out, stuck 'em in life support pods and linked them right into their fake world. They called it Veality, catchy contraction of Virtual reality.

And those people, those stupid wretches, they loved it.

In Veality, you can live dangerously without death or pain, respawning anytime you like. Glutting yourself with the simulated images and taste that pass for food will never make you fat, because all you're really eating is the stream of nutrients that enter your body through an IV in your arm.

You don't need a job. Everything is free.

"Killing" someone generates no hard feelings.

Birth control is hardly necessary.

Basically, Veality takes responsibility out of life.

So obviously every person that could signed up. Most of the world lives on the Other Side now, in their blank buildings, stacked pod upon pod, living a dream.

...But are consequences here, if not there. Our rig's dark heart and others like it cannot go on drowning the planet. I can't help but know this as I sit in the shuttle and watch the Earth go toxic green.

I haven't done microscale for a while. :P

For Mike Doyle's Contest extension.

Please C&C! :D

A frigid Toa with a mind like a supercomputer.