View allAll Photos Tagged SuperComputer
Argonne's Blue Gene/P supercomputer, tinted green in this photo to illustrate its environmentally friendly low energy consumption, is one of the world's fastest computers for open scientific research.
KITT or K.I.T.T. is the short name of two fictional characters from the adventure franchise Knight Rider. While having the same acronym, the KITTs are two different entities: one known as the Knight Industries Two Thousand, which appeared in the original TV series Knight Rider.
During filming, KITT was voiced by a script assistant, with voice actors recording KITT's dialog later. David Hasselhoff and original series voice actor William Daniels first met each other six months after the series began filming. KITT's evil twin is KARR, whose name is an acronym of Knight Automated Roving Robot. KARR was voiced first by Peter Cullen and later by Paul Frees in seasons one and three, respectively, of the NBC original TV series Knight Rider.
In the original Knight Rider series, the character of KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) was physically embodied as a modified 1982 Pontiac Trans Am. KITT was designed by customizer Michael Scheffe. The convertible and super-pursuit KITTs were designed and built by George Barris.
KITT is an advanced supercomputer on wheels. The "brain" of KITT is the Knight 2000 microprocessor, which is the centre of a "self-aware" cybernetic logic module. This allows KITT to think, learn, communicate and interact with humans. He is also capable of independent thought and action. He has an ego that is easy to bruise and displays a very sensitive, but kind and dryly humorous personality.
Edited Event Horizon Telescope image of a black hole in the the galaxy M87. What you see here isn't the actual black hole but material tat has been heated to super-hot temperatures and glows as a result of being so close to the black hole and rubbing against other particles. Larger image to follow. Color/processing variant.
Image source: eventhorizontelescope.org/
First original caption: Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun. This long-sought image provides the strongest evidence to date for the existence of supermassive black holes and opens a new window onto the study of black holes, their event horizons, and gravity. Credit: Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration
Second original caption: Astronomers Capture First Image of a Black Hole
An international collaboration presents paradigm-shifting observations of the gargantuan black hole at the heart of distant galaxy Messier 87
The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a planet-scale array of eight ground-based radio telescopes forged through international collaboration — was designed to capture images of a black hole. Today, in coordinated press conferences across the globe, EHT researchers reveal that they have succeeded, unveiling the first direct visual evidence of a supermassive black hole and its shadow.
This breakthrough was announced today in a series of six papers published in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. The image reveals the black hole at the center of Messier 87 [1], a massive galaxy in the nearby Virgo galaxy cluster. This black hole resides 55 million light-years from Earth and has a mass 6.5 billion times that of the Sun [2].
The EHT links telescopes around the globe to form an Earth-sized virtual telescope with unprecedented sensitivity and resolution [3]. The EHT is the result of years of international collaboration, and offers scientists a new way to study the most extreme objects in the Universe predicted by Einstein’s general relativity during the centennial year of the historic experiment that first confirmed the theory [4].
"We have taken the first picture of a black hole," said EHT project director Sheperd S. Doeleman of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. "This is an extraordinary scientific feat accomplished by a team of more than 200 researchers."
Black holes are extraordinary cosmic objects with enormous masses but extremely compact sizes. The presence of these objects affects their environment in extreme ways, warping spacetime and super-heating any surrounding material.
"If immersed in a bright region, like a disc of glowing gas, we expect a black hole to create a dark region similar to a shadow — something predicted by Einstein’s general relativity that we’ve never seen before, explained chair of the EHT Science Council Heino Falcke of Radboud University, the Netherlands. "This shadow, caused by the gravitational bending and capture of light by the event horizon, reveals a lot about the nature of these fascinating objects and allowed us to measure the enormous mass of M87’s black hole."
Multiple calibration and imaging methods have revealed a ring-like structure with a dark central region — the black hole’s shadow — that persisted over multiple independent EHT observations.
"Once we were sure we had imaged the shadow, we could compare our observations to extensive computer models that include the physics of warped space, superheated matter and strong magnetic fields. Many of the features of the observed image match our theoretical understanding surprisingly well," remarks Paul T.P. Ho, EHT Board member and Director of the East Asian Observatory [5]. "This makes us confident about the interpretation of our observations, including our estimation of the black hole’s mass."
Creating the EHT was a formidable challenge which required upgrading and connecting a worldwide network of eight pre-existing telescopes deployed at a variety of challenging high-altitude sites. These locations included volcanoes in Hawai`i and Mexico, mountains in Arizona and the Spanish Sierra Nevada, the Chilean Atacama Desert, and Antarctica.
The EHT observations use a technique called very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) which synchronises telescope facilities around the world and exploits the rotation of our planet to form one huge, Earth-size telescope observing at a wavelength of 1.3 mm. VLBI allows the EHT to achieve an angular resolution of 20 micro-arcseconds — enough to read a newspaper in New York from a sidewalk café in Paris [6].
The telescopes contributing to this result were ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter telescope, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano, the Submillimeter Array, the Submillimeter Telescope, and the South Pole Telescope [7]. Petabytes of raw data from the telescopes were combined by highly specialised supercomputers hosted by the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory.
The construction of the EHT and the observations announced today represent the culmination of decades of observational, technical, and theoretical work. This example of global teamwork required close collaboration by researchers from around the world. Thirteen partner institutions worked together to create the EHT, using both pre-existing infrastructure and support from a variety of agencies. Key funding was provided by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the EU's European Research Council (ERC), and funding agencies in East Asia.
"We have achieved something presumed to be impossible just a generation ago," concluded Doeleman. "Breakthroughs in technology, connections between the world's best radio observatories, and innovative algorithms all came together to open an entirely new window on black holes and the event horizon."
Notes
[1] The shadow of a black hole is the closest we can come to an image of the black hole itself, a completely dark object from which light cannot escape. The black hole’s boundary — the event horizon from which the EHT takes its name — is around 2.5 times smaller than the shadow it casts and measures just under 40 billion km across.
[2] Supermassive black holes are relatively tiny astronomical objects — which has made them impossible to directly observe until now. As a black hole’s size is proportional to its mass, the more massive a black hole, the larger the shadow. Thanks to its enormous mass and relative proximity, M87’s black hole was predicted to be one of the largest viewable from Earth — making it a perfect target for the EHT.
[3] Although the telescopes are not physically connected, they are able to synchronize their recorded data with atomic clocks — hydrogen masers — which precisely time their observations. These observations were collected at a wavelength of 1.3 mm during a 2017 global campaign. Each telescope of the EHT produced enormous amounts of data — roughly 350 terabytes per day — which was stored on high-performance helium-filled hard drives. These data were flown to highly specialised supercomputers — known as correlators — at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and MIT Haystack Observatory to be combined. They were then painstakingly converted into an image using novel computational tools developed by the collaboration.
[4] 100 years ago, two expeditions set out for the island of Príncipe off the coast of Africa and Sobra in Brazil to observe the 1919 solar eclipse, with the goal of testing general relativity by seeing if starlight would be bent around the limb of the sun, as predicted by Einstein. In an echo of those observations, the EHT has sent team members to some of the world's highest and isolated radio facilities to once again test our understanding of gravity.
[5] The East Asian Observatory (EAO) partner on the EHT project represents the participation of many regions in Asia, including China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, India and Indonesia.
[6] Future EHT observations will see substantially increased sensitivity with the participation of the IRAM NOEMA Observatory, the Greenland Telescope and the Kitt Peak Telescope.
[7] ALMA is a partnership of the European Southern Observatory (ESO; Europe, representing its member states), the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) of Japan, together with the National Research Council (Canada), the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST; Taiwan), Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA; Taiwan), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (KASI; Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. APEX is operated by ESO, the 30-meter telescope is operated by IRAM (the IRAM Partner Organizations are MPG (Germany), CNRS (France) and IGN (Spain)), the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is operated by the EAO, the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano is operated by INAOE and UMass, the Submillimeter Array is operated by SAO and ASIAA and the Submillimeter Telescope is operated by the Arizona Radio Observatory (ARO). The South Pole Telescope is operated by the University of Chicago with specialized EHT instrumentation provided by the University of Arizona.
More Information
This research was presented in a series of six papers published today in a special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, along with a Focus Issue:
Paper I: The Shadow of the Supermassive Black Hole
Paper II: Array and Instrumentation
Paper III: Data processing and Calibration
Paper IV: Imaging the Central Supermassive Black Hole
Paper V: Physical Origin of the Asymmetric Ring
Paper VI: The Shadow and Mass of the Central Black Hole
Press release images in higher resolution (4000x2330 pixels) can be found here in PNG (16-bit), and JPG (8-bit) format. The highest-quality image (7416x4320 pixels, TIF, 16-bit, 180 Mb) can be obtained from repositories of our partners, NSF and ESO. A summary of latest press and media resources can be found on this page.
The EHT collaboration involves more than 200 researchers from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. The international collaboration is working to capture the most detailed black hole images ever by creating a virtual Earth-sized telescope. Supported by considerable international investment, the EHT links existing telescopes using novel systems — creating a fundamentally new instrument with the highest angular resolving power that has yet been achieved.
The individual telescopes involved are; ALMA, APEX, the IRAM 30-meter Telescope, the IRAM NOEMA Observatory, the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), the Large Millimeter Telescope Alfonso Serrano (LMT), the Submillimeter Array (SMA), the Submillimeter Telescope (SMT), the South Pole Telescope (SPT), the Kitt Peak Telescope, and the Greenland Telescope (GLT).
The EHT collaboration consists of 13 stakeholder institutes; the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the University of Arizona, the University of Chicago, the East Asian Observatory, Goethe-Universitaet Frankfurt, Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique, Large Millimeter Telescope, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, MIT Haystack Observatory, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Radboud University and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
Contact Information
Sheperd S. Doeleman
EHT Collaboration Director
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
E-mail: sdoeleman@cfa.harvard.edu
Phone: +1-617-496-7762
Peter D. Edmonds
Public Information Officer
Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian
60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138
E-mail: pedmonds@cfa.harvard.edu
Phone: +1-617-571-7279
EHT Outreach Working Group
E-mail: ehtelescope@gmail.com
In June 1954, the first of two IBM 701s arrived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The IBM 701 had a 4,096-word memory, each word being 36-bits; equivalent to almost 12 decimal digits. The parallel feature meant the machine did most of its internal operations including arithmetical on whole words and much faster than the Lab’s UNIVAC. According to computation pioneer George Michael, however, the machine “freely made mistakes, but never reported them.” Input for the 701 was prepared on a keypunch and entered through a card reader.
Busbar Power Distribution Systems by EAE Elektrik, part of the infrastructure for the new Dutch petascale national supercomputer, "Cartesius", provided and built by Bull.
Edited Chandra Space Telescope visualization of the center of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Original caption: Want to take a trip to the center of the Milky Way? Check out a new immersive, ultra-high-definition visualization. This 360-movie offers an unparalleled opportunity to look around the center of the galaxy, from the vantage point of the central supermassive black hole, in any direction the user chooses.
By combining NASA Ames supercomputer simulations with data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, this visualization provides a new perspective of what is happening in and around the center of the Milky Way. It shows the effects of dozens of massive stellar giants with fierce winds blowing off their surfaces in the region a few light years away from the supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A* (Sgr A* for short).
These winds provide a buffet of material for the supermassive black hole to potentially feed upon. As in a previous visualization, the viewer can observe dense clumps of material streaming toward Sgr A*. These clumps formed when winds from the massive stars near Sgr A* collide. Along with watching the motion of these clumps, viewers can watch as relatively low-density gas falls toward Sgr A*. In this new visualization, the blue and cyan colors represent X-ray emission from hot gas, with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees; red shows moderately dense regions of cooler gas, with temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees; and yellow shows of the cooler gas with the highest densities.
A collection of X-ray-emitting gas is seen to move slowly when it is far away from Sgr A*, and then pick up speed and whip around the viewer as it comes inwards. Sometimes clumps of gas will collide with gas ejected by other stars, resulting in a flash of X-rays when the gas is heated up, and then it quickly cools down. Farther away from the viewer, the movie also shows collisions of fast stellar winds producing X-rays. These collisions are thought to provide the dominant source of hot gas that is seen by Chandra.
When an outburst occurs from gas very near the black hole, the ejected gas collides with material flowing away from the massive stars in winds, pushing this material backwards and causing it to glow in X-rays. When the outburst dies down the winds return to normal and the X-rays fade.
The 360-degree video of the Galactic Center is ideally viewed through virtual reality (VR) goggles, such as Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard. The video can also be viewed on smartphones using the YouTube app. Moving the phone around reveals a different portion of the movie, mimicking the effect in the VR goggles. Finally, most browsers on a computer also allow 360-degree videos to be shown on YouTube. To look around, either click and drag the video, or click the direction pad in the corner.
Dr. Christopher Russell of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Pontifical Catholic University) presented the new visualization at the 17th meeting of the High-Energy Astrophysics (HEAD) of the American Astronomical Society held in Monterey, Calif. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.
Sebastian Buckup, Shinpei Kato, Nikolaus Lang, Angela Wang Nan speaking in the Supercomputers on Wheels session at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2023 in Tianjin, People's Republic of China, 28 June 2023. Tianjin Meijiang Convention Center - Room: Hub A. Copyright: World Economic Forum/Benedikt von Loebell
The Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory earned the top ranking on May 30 2022, as the world’s fastest on the 59th TOP500 list, with 1.1 exaflops of performance. The system is the first to achieve the level of computing performance known as exascale, a threshold of a quintillion calculations per second.
Pontiac Firebird Trans Am (2nd Gen) (1970-81) Engine 301 cu in (4900cc) Pontiac V8
Registration Number KNIGHT
PONTIAC ALBUM
www.flickr.com/photos/45676495@N05/sets/72157623690516561...
KITT is an artificially intelligent electronic computer module in the body of a highly advanced, very mobile, robotic automobile. The original KITT is known as the Knight Industries Two Thousand, which appeared in the original TV series Knight Rider as a 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am. A second KITT is known as the Knight Industries Three Thousand, which appeared first in the two-hour 2008 pilot film for a new Knight Rider TV series and then the new series itself, and appeared as a 2008–2009 Ford Shelby GT500KR. In the original Knight Rider series, the character of KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) was physically embodied as a modified 1982 Pontiac Trans Am. KITT was designed by customizer Michael Scheffe.The convertible and super-pursuit KITTs were designed and built by George Barris. the first KITT, voiced by William Daniels, was said to have been designed by the late Wilton Knight, a brilliant but eccentric billionaire, who established the Foundation for Law and Government (FLAG) and its parent Knight Industries. KITT is an advanced supercomputer on wheels. The brain of KITT is the Knight 2000 microprocessor, This allows KITT to think, learn, communicate and interact with humans. He is also capable of independent thought and action. He has an ego that is easy to bruise and displays a very sensitive, but kind and dryly humorous personality. KITT's Voice (Anharmonic) Synthesizer (for speech) and Etymotic Equalizer (audio input) allow his logic module to speak and communicate. With it, KITT can also simulate other sounds. KITT's primary spoken language was English; however, by accessing his language module, he can speak fluently in Spanish, French and much more
The second generation debut for the 1970 model year was delayed due to tooling and engineering problems and the cars were finally released in February 1970. Replacing the Coke bottle styling was a more swoopy body style, a style that ran with regular updates until 1981.,
The models became increasingly strangled by ever tightening emission regulations but until the 1979 models, the performance of 400-equipped Firebirds could still be brought up to near pre-1970 levels by disabling emissions equipment- removing the catalytic converter and blocking off the exhaust gas recirculation system- and opening up the block off plate to make the hood scoop functional. Static compression ratios dropped in the early 70s which crippled horsepower and torque output. In 1980, due to ever-increasing emissions restrictions, Pontiac dropped all of its large displacement engines
1980 therefore saw the biggest engine changes for the Trans Am. The 301, offered in 1979 as a credit option, was now the standard engine. Options included a turbocharged 301 or the Chevrolet 305 small block
Diolch am 92,881,566 o olygfeydd anhygoel, mae pob un yn cael ei werthfawrogi'n fawr.
Thanks for 92,881,566 amazing views, every one is greatly appreciated.
Shot 23.04.2022 at the Bicester Spring Scramble, Bicester, Oxfordshire 158-353
Sebastian Buckup, Shinpei Kato, Nikolaus Lang, Angela Wang Nan speaking in the Supercomputers on Wheels session at the Annual Meeting of the New Champions 2023 in Tianjin, People's Republic of China, 28 June 2023. Tianjin Meijiang Convention Center - Room: Hub A. Copyright: World Economic Forum/Benedikt von Loebell
Sierra, a 261.3 TeraFLOP/s Dell system, is dedicated to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s unclassified Grand Challenge and Laboratory Directed Research and Development programs. Research areas include: bioscience; materials science; energy; astrophysics; and environment.
JURY DISTINCTION FOR CATEGORY 1. OBJECT OF STUDY
Copyright CC-BY-NC-ND: Diego Rossinelli, Jatta Berberat and Gilles Fourestey
This supercomputing simulation shows how cerebrospinal fluid streams around the optic nerve (the latter passes through the centre of the “donut” but has been removed for clarity). The flow is visualised by streamlines coloured logarithmically according to their speed. The cerebrospinal fluid flows from the brain to the optic nerve, supplying it with nutrients and removing toxic metabolites. The subarachnoid space in which it flows features complex structures at different scales, creating patterns with numerous bifurcations and junctions. An impaired flow plays a central role in eye pathologies such as papilledema and certain types of glaucoma.
The geometry of the structure was captured with synchrotron-radiation microtomography of a human optic nerve at the Paul Scherrer Institute; it consists of more than two terabytes of data. The flow field was computed with very accurate Fourier-based schemes on the Helvetios supercomputer at EPFL.
Comment of the jury │ The image, striking for its fascinating and somehow alien aesthetic, shows the power of digital modelling in opening up new perspectives on nature and biology. It unveils the inner world of the vision system and its complex organic reality. The viewer contemplates what is currently occurring in their own body, possibly getting lost in the labyrinth-like intricacies of unknown current lines.
--
Cette simulation faite par superordinateur révèle comment le liquide céphalo-rachidien s’écoule autour du nerf optique (ce dernier qui passe par le centre de l’anneau a été retiré pour plus de clarté). L’écoulement est visualisé par des lignes de courant colorées de manière logarithmique en fonction de leur vitesse. Le liquide céphalo-rachidien circule du cerveau vers le nerf optique, lui apportant des nutriments et éliminant les métabolites toxiques. L’espace sous-arachnoïdien dans lequel il circule présente des structures complexes à différentes échelles qui créent des flux ayant de nombreuses bifurcations et jonctions. Une altération de l’écoulement du liquide céphalo-rachidien joue un rôle central dans des pathologies oculaires telles que l’œdème papillaire et certains types de glaucome.
La géométrie de la structure a été acquise par une microtomographie par rayonnement synchrotron d’un nerf optique humain à l’Institut Paul Scherrer et totalise plus de deux téraoctets de données. Les flux de l’écoulement ont été calculés sur le superordinateur Helvetios de l’EPFL à l’aide de schémas de Fourier très précis.
Commentaire du jury │ L’image frappe par son esthétique singulière tout en démontrant le potentiel de la modélisation numérique pour ouvrir de nouvelles perspectives sur la nature et la biologie. Elle nous révèle le monde intérieur du système visuel et sa réalité organique complexe. Nous contemplons ainsi ce qui se passe présentement dans notre propre corps, nous perdant un peu dans les inextricables méandres façonnés par des flux énigmatiques.
--
Diese von einem Supercomputer erstellte Simulation veranschaulicht, wie die Gehirn-Rückenmark-Flüssigkeit um den Sehnerv herumfliesst (der Sehnerv verläuft durch die Mitte des Donuts, wurde aber für eine bessere Übersichtlichkeit entfernt). Das Fliessen wird durch Strömungslinien visualisiert, die je nach Geschwindigkeit logarithmisch eingefärbt sind. Die Gehirn-Rückenmark-Flüssigkeit zirkuliert vom Gehirn zum Sehnerv, versorgt ihn mit Nährstoffen und entfernt giftige Stoffwechselprodukte. Der Subarachnoidalraum, in dem die Flüssigkeit zirkuliert, weist auf verschiedenen Ebenen komplexe Strukturen auf, wodurch Flüsse mit Verzweigungen und Mündungen entstehen. Beeinträchtigungen dieser Zirkulation der Gehirn-Rückenmark-Flüssigkeit spielen eine zentrale Rolle bei Augenerkrankungen wie dem Papillenödem und bestimmten Glaukomen.
Die Geometrie der Struktur wurde aus mehr als zwei Terabyte Daten errechnet, die bei einer am Paul Scherrer Institut durchgeführten Synchrotron-Mikrotomographie bei einem menschlichen Sehnerv gewonnen wurden. Die Flüsse wurden auf dem Supercomputer Helvetios der EPFL mit äusserst präzisen Fourier-Transformationen berechnet.
Kommentar der Jury │ Das Bild besticht durch eine aussergewöhnliche Ästhetik und veranschaulicht gleichzeitig das Potenzial der digitalen Modellierung, die neue Blickwinkel auf Natur und Biologie eröffnet. Es enthüllt die Innenwelt des visuellen Systems und dessen komplexe physische Realität. Wir betrachten, was in unserem eigenen Körper vor sich geht, und verlieren uns ein wenig in den unentwirrbar mäandrierenden, geheimnisvollen Strömen.
So... just for kicks I was working on a COBRA style generic enemy, Skull Corps. This was originally going to be part of a set of "playsets" for their secret mountain hideaway on Skull Island. Time, work, life, and the desire to play with REAL Legos intervened. However, I did get a lot done on this. It slowly acquired parts of the other sets, such as the supercomputer from Dr. Claw's lab, and a cell from the dungeon. I was going to put a small version of the Indoctrination Center (where they brainwash new Skull Corps recruits) on the upper floor, but I didn't get to it.
One of the more popular talks at TED 2012, I caught his glance as he was just starting.
And the ending:
"Between 2010 and 2020, 3 billion minds will come online and join the global conversation. These are voices you have never heard. What will they create and consume in this global economy? They will represent tens of trillions of annual purchasing power.
Consider the Fold It game from the University of Washington, where humans minds compete to figure out the difficult task of protein folding, outperforming supercomputers. What was unsolved in 15 years was solved in 15 days. Who is the best protein folder in the world? A Manchester woman who works as an EA in a rehab clinic by day and at night, she is the world’s best protein folder. That could only happen in our modern, connected world."
One of two identical Cray XC40 clusters in ECMWF’s high-performance computing facility (HPCF).
Each cluster had 20 cabinets of compute nodes and 13 of storage and weighed more than 50 metric tonnes. The bulk of the system consisted of compute nodes with two Intel Xeon E5-2695 V4 “Broadwell” processors each with 18 cores.
•~3,600 nodes/130,000 compute cores per cluster
•Combined performance of the two clusters: ~8.5 petaflops peak and ~320 teraflops sustained performance
•Numbers 23 and 24 in the November 2016 Top 500 Supercomputers list
One of two identical Cray XC40 clusters in ECMWF’s high-performance computing facility (HPCF).
Each cluster had 20 cabinets of compute nodes and 13 of storage and weighed more than 50 metric tonnes. The bulk of the system consisted of compute nodes with two Intel Xeon E5-2695 V4 “Broadwell” processors each with 18 cores.
•~3,600 nodes/130,000 compute cores per cluster
•Combined performance of the two clusters: ~8.5 petaflops peak and ~320 teraflops sustained performance
•Numbers 23 and 24 in the November 2016 Top 500 Supercomputers list
2000 - The world celebrates the turn of the millenium | The dot-com bubble bursts | Concorde crashes in France, killing 113 | Personal home computers break the 1Ghz barrier | Sydney hosts the Olympic Games
2001 - George Bush is sworn in as the 43rd President of the United States | A devastating terrorist attack leaves nearly 3,000 dead in America | The world's first space tourist | Wikipedia is launched
2002 - Apple introduces the iMac G4 | Quaoar is discovered | The deadliest act of terrorism in the history of Indonesia
2003 - Space Shuttle Columbia disaster | The invasion of Iraq | The Human Genome Project is completed | Record heatwaves kill tens of thousands in Europe | MySpace is launched
2004 - George Bush is re-elected | Athens hosts the Olympic Games | Train bombings in Madrid kill nearly 200 people | Hubble Ultra Deep Field | Mars Exploration Rovers | The first privately funded human spaceflight | Facebook is launched | World's first 1Gb SD card | London's skyline gets a new landmark | Asia gets a new tallest building | Indian Ocean earthquake leaves a quarter of a million dead
2005 - Suicide bombers in London kill 56 people, injure 700 others | Hurricane Katrina floods New Orleans | Huygens probe reveals images of Titan's surface | YouTube is launched | Angela Merkel becomes the first female Chancellor of Germany
2006 - North Korea conducts its first nuclear test | West African black rhinos are declared extinct | Pluto is demoted to "dwarf planet" status | Saddam Hussein is executed
2007 - Global economic downturn | Gordon Brown succeeds Tony Blair as Prime Minister of Great Britain | Nicolas Sarkozy is elected President of the French Republic | Arctic sea ice hits a record low | Apple debuts the iPhone | Amazon releases the Kindle | Benazir Bhutto is assassinated in Pakistan
2008 - Oil prices hit a record high of $147/barrel | Internet continues to boom | Scientists extract images directly from the brain | Artificial DNA | Breakthrough in wireless energy transfer | Major advances in CGI | Video adverts on London's tube | Beijing hosts the Olympic games
2009 - Major breakthrough in cancer research | Scientists engineer new plastics without use of fossil fuels | Mouse genome is fully sequenced | Water is discovered on the Moon | Mercury is 98% mapped | A shift towards portable (and ultra-portable) PCs | Mind control headsets available for gamers | The tallest man-made structure in history is completed | Kepler searches for Earth-like planets | 3D scanning enters the consumer market | Africa's population tops one billion
2010 - Scientists create synthetic life | Iran is on the brink of revolution | China becomes the largest energy consumer in the world | Localised renewable energy is becoming affordable | Apple debuts the iPad | Augmented Reality is entering the mainstream | Macular degeneration is curable | Speech-to-speech translation is common in mobile phones | Major breakthrough in robotics |BP oil spill environmental disaster
2011-2014 - British forces withdraw from Afghanistan
2011 - The Space Shuttle fleet is retired | The web has a greater reach than television | Multi-touch surface computing is available to the mass market | The first open petaflop supercomputer comes online | Batteries that charge in seconds | 22 nanometre chips are in mass production | USB 3.0 is available | Consumer-level robotics are booming | Completion of the ISS | World's first commercial spaceport | China's Three Gorges Dam is fully operational
2012 - Economic growth remains sluggish in many markets | London hosts the Olympic Games |
OLED screens are becoming widespread | Brain-computer interfaces allowing the paralysed to walk again | A cure for baldness | World's first 1-GW offshore wind farm | Mars Science Laboratory explores the Red Planet | Barack Obama is re-elected
2013 - Iran carries out its first nuclear test | Solar flares are disrupting the Earth's magnetosphere |
3D technologies are widespread | India launches its second lunar exploration mission
2014 - The James Webb telescope is launched | Personalised DNA sequencing for less than $100 | Internet "lifecasting" enters the mainstream | 16nm chips are in mass production | Terabyte SD cards are available | Robotic pack mules are entering military service | MAVEN probe arrives at Mars | The Rosetta probe deploys its lander on comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko | Most telephone calls are made via the Internet now | Brazil hosts the FIFA World Cup
2015-2019 - Virtual Reality makes a comeback
2015 - Worldwide PC use reaches 2bn | Nanotech water filters are spreading to many developing countries | The first climate change refugees | 3D printing enters the consumer market | New Horizons probe arrives at Pluto | Dawn probe arrives at Ceres | Voyager I enters the heliopause
2016 - The US military withdraws its last remaining troops from Afghanistan | US vehicles are becoming more fuel-efficient | Laser guns are in naval use | Holographic versatile disc (HVD) replaces Blu-Ray | Biocameras matching human eye resolution | Rio de Janeiro hosts the Olympic Games
2017 - Total solar eclipse in the USA | Crossrail opens in London | Electronic paper is widespread | Portable medical lasers that seal wounds | Teleportation of simple molecules
2018 - The European Extremely Large Telescope is operational | Ubiquitous internet nodes connect appliances, vehicles, etc. | Robot insect spies are in military use | Consumer devices with 100 Gbit/s transfer speeds | Anti-fat drug is available | The new World Trade Center is complete
2019 - ITER experimental fusion reactor is switched on | Computers break the exaflop barrier | Bionic eyes are commercially available | Automated freight transport | The Aral Sea disappears from the map | Global oil demand exceeds 100 million barrels per day
2020-2035 - World energy crisis
2020 - Internet use reaches 5 billion worldwide | Texting by thinking | Complete organ replacements grown from stem cells | Holographic TV is mainstream | Sweden becomes the first oil-free country |
Glacier National Park and other regions are becoming ice-free | Completion of the Square Kilometre Array | Wholly lifelike CGI
2021 - "Thoughtcrime" is becoming a reality | Fully reusable single-stage-to-orbit spacecraft | Telecommuting is a standard flexible work option | Traditional microchips are reaching the limits of miniaturisation | Water crisis in southwest USA
2022 - Nanotech clothing enters the mass market | Tooth regeneration is transforming dental care | Piezoelectric nanowires are appearing in high-end products | Deafness is curable
2023 - Laser-driven fusion energy makes progress | Borneo’s rainforests have been wiped from the map | Gorillas are extinct in Central Africa | Turkey becomes self-sufficient in energy production
2024 - The biggest refugee crisis in world history | African elephants are on the brink of extinction | Petabyte storage devices are available
2025 - Human brain simulations are becoming possible | Medical nanobots are becoming available | China's economy continues to boom | Vertical farms are appearing in many cities | High-speed rail networks are being expanded in many countries | Africa and the Middle East are linked by a transcontinental bridge | Progress with longevity extension | Stress and anxiety are reaching crisis levels | Contact with the Voyager probes is lost
2026 - Rising sea levels are wreaking havoc on the Maldives | The United States of Africa is established
2027 - BRICs overtake the G7 nations | Carbon sequestration is underway in many nations
2028 - Printed electronics are ubiquitous | UK population reaches 70m | Manned fighter planes are being phased out and replaced with UAVs | Amputees can regrow lost limbs
2029 - Human-like AI is becoming a reality | Heavy automation of supermarkets and retail environments | Intelligent advertising | Titan Saturn System Mission (TSSM) | Lake Chad disappears from the map
2030 - Global population is reaching crisis point | AI is widespread | USA is declining as a world power | AIDS, cancer and a plethora of other degenerative diseases are curable | India becomes the most populous country in the world | Full weather modeling is perfected | Emerging job titles of today
2031 – Web 4.0 is transforming the Internet landscape | Married couples are a minority
2032 - Manned mission to Mars | 4th generation nuclear power | Terabit internet speeds are commonplace
2033 - Hypersonic airliners are entering service | Holographic wall screens | IT's share of the US economy reaches 15% | Lung disease in China has killed over 80 million by now
2034 - Exabyte storage devices are available
2035 - Turmoil in the Middle East | The Arctic is becoming ice-free during summer | Self-driving vehicles are widespread | Holographic recreations of dead people | Robots are dominating the battlefield | Artificially-grown meat is available to consumers
2036 - Bionic eyes that surpass human vision
2037 - Quantum computers are becoming available
2038 - Teleportation of complex organic molecules | The FIFA World Cup trophy is replaced
2039 - Full immersion virtual reality | Universal translators are ubiquitous | Nanotech fabrics are ubiquitous | Australia's national symbol, the Koala bear, faces extinction | US population reaches 400m
2040 - Clean energy is widespread | Fusion power is nearing commercial availability | "Energy islands" are appearing in many coastal regions | Thought transfer is dominating personal communications worldwide | Claytronics are revolutionising the consumer market | Breakthroughs in carbon nanotube production | World population reaches 8.5 bn | Water crisis in Europe
2042 - Nanotech robot swarms are the latest in military hi-tech | Manned missions to Phobos and Deimos | Floating hotels in the sky are heralding a new era in luxury transport
2044 - The last veterans of WW2 are passing away
2045 - Humans are becoming intimately merged with machines | Global food and water shortages |
Gulf Coast cities are being abandoned due to super hurricanes
2045-2049 - China transitions towards a democracy | Major extinctions of animal and plant life
2048 - The near-Earth asteroid 2007 VK184 makes a close pass
2049 - Robots are a common feature of homes and workplaces |
2050 - The World in 2050 | 45% of the Amazon rainforest has been destroyed | Wildfires have tripled in some regions; air quality and visibility is declining | Smaller, faster, hi-tech automobiles | Continent-wide "supergrids" provide much of the world's energy needs | One in five Europeans is a Muslim
2052 - Hyper-fast crime scene analysis
2053 - Moore's Law reaches stunning new levels | Genetically engineered "designer babies" for the rich
2055 - Traditional media have fragmented and diversified | Global population plateaus at 9 billion
2056 - Fully synthetic humans are becoming technically feasible
2057 - Computers reach another milestone | Handheld MRI scanners
2058 - Construction of a radio telescope on the Moon
2059 - Mars population reaches 100
2060 - Global mass migrations of refugees | Flood barriers erected in New York | Global extinction rates are peaking | An ageing population | Mining operations on the Moon
2061 - Halley's Comet returns | UK population reaches 80 million
2062 - Nanofabricators enter the consumer market
2064 - IT's share of the US economy reaches 20%
2065 - Longevity treatments that can halt aging | Invisibility suits are in military use | Insurance crisis
2067 - Male and female salaries are reaching parity
2068 - A major landmark in the world of athletics
2069 - 100th anniversary of Apollo 11 | US population reaches half a billion
2070 - Large-scale evacuations are underway in many coastal cities | Fusion power is widespread | Fully automated homes | Expansion of Moon bases
2072 - Picotechnology is becoming practical
2074 - The Green Wall of China is completed
2075 - The ozone layer has fully recovered | London and other major cities are being flooded
2076 - Unmanned probes to Sedna
2079 - Practical flying cars are entering the consumer market | Total solar eclipse in New York
2080 - Some humans are more non-biological than biological | Construction of a transatlantic tunnel | Polar bears face extinction | One in five lizard species are extinct | Deadly heatwaves plague Europe; traditional agriculture is decimated
2082 - The USA cedes territory to Mexico
2083 - Hyper-intelligent computers
2084 - Androids are entering law enforcement
2085 - Global currency | Macro-scale teleportation is achieved
2085-2089 - Manned exploration of the Jovian system
2090 - Traditional religions are fading from European culture
2092 - West Antarctica is among the fastest growing areas in the world
2095 - Many of the world's languages are no longer in use | Manned exploration of the Saturnian system
2099 - Sea levels are wreaking havoc around the world | 83% of the Amazon rainforest has been lost
2100 - Much of the world is controlled by AI now | World GDP per capita exceeds US$200,000 | Nomadic floating cities are roaming the oceans | The chemistry of Earth's oceans has been radically altered | Emperor Penguins face extinction
2110 - Terraforming of Mars is underway | Force fields are in military use | Femtoengineering is practical | Man-made control of earthquakes and tsunamis | Our solar system is passing through a million degree cloud of gas
2120 - Mind uploading enters mainstream society | The International Space Elevator is operational
2130 - Large-scale civilian settlement of the Moon is underway
2140 - Teleportation of large stationary objects is possible
2150 - Interstellar travel is becoming possible | Androids physically indistinguishable from real humans | Hi-tech, automated cities
2151 - Total solar eclipse in London
2155 - Universal education in Africa
2160 - The world's first bicentenarians
2170 - The first kilometre-sized space station is complete
2180 - Antimatter power plants are coming online | Asteroid terrorism
2190 - Matter replication is available for the home | Global languages are becoming few in number now; education has been vastly accelerated | The West Antarctic ice sheet is beginning to disintegrate
2200 - The World in 2200 | Poverty, hunger and disease are being eradicated worldwide
2210 - A global rewilding effort is underway
2220 - Mind uploading is available to a multitude of platforms | The Light Year Array is operational
2230 - Antimatter-fueled starships
2240 - Christianity is fading from American culture
2250 - Humanity is becoming a Type 1 civilisation on the Kardashev scale
2260 - Accelerated development of the Solar System
2280 - Microbial life is confirmed on an exoplanet
Sequoia, a world-class IBM BlueGene/Q computer sited at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the National Nuclear Security Administration, is exploring a broad range of science to shakeout the machine and fully develop the capabilities the system will require to fulfill its national security missions. Located in Livermore's TSF computing facility, Sequoia is a resource used by researchers at the three nuclear weapons labs -- Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national labs. Sequoia was ranked No. 1 on the industry-standard Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers in June, 2012. The system also was No. 1 on the Green 500, as the world's most energy efficient computer, and No. 1 on the Graph 500, a measure of the ability to solve big data problems -- finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Huwbot and the Brickset Databank Tower, an ultra-powerful Supercomputer that helps Huwbot with his work.
Yes, he really can stand up on that wheel!
A graffiti seen at Hamburgs railway station Dammtor under the bridge. It's from the same artist "marshal Arts" who created "Darth Trump" (see www.facebook.com/marshal.arts.streetart/)
The Terminator and Sarah Conner look at the Amazon speaker known as "Alexa" but labeled "Skynet". In the 80s nobody would have bought(!) a microphone for the living room which monitors everything said from anyone and copies this over world-wide network to some inter-connected supercomputers for analysis. This could be labeled as "Skynet" indeed.
Sarah Connor is wearing a T-shirt of the band "Public Enemy" which is rather funny on a side note.
Starring Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, Philip Van Zandt, and William Schallert. Directed by Herbert L. Strock.
When two scientists at a top-secret government installation devoted to space research are killed -- in their own test chamber, seemingly by an experiment gone awry -- Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is sent out from Washington to investigate. Sheppard mixes easily enough with the somewhat eccentric team of scientists, though he always seems in danger of being distracted by the presence of Joanne Merritt (Constance Dowling), who serves as the aide to the project director Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) but is, in reality, another security agent. Sheppard is as puzzled as anyone else by the seemingly inexplicable series of events overtaking the installation -- properly operating equipment suddenly undergoing lethal malfunctions, and the radar tracking aircraft that aren't there -- until he puts it together with the operations of NOVAC (Nuclear Operated Variable Automatic Computer), the central brain of the complex. But the mystery deepens when he discovers that NOVAC was shut down during one of the "accidents" -- and even the computer's operators can't account fully for the whereabouts of GOG and MAGOG, the two robots under the computer's control.
"...and then without warning, the machine became a frankenstein of steel," says the sensationalist poster text. This is the third story in Ivan Tors' OSI trilogy. His first "Office of Scientific Investigation" story was Magnetic Monster in early 1953. The second was Riders to the Stars in early '54. With Gog the loose trilogy is complete. Unlike the Star Wars trilogy in which the stories build upon each other, each of the three OSI stories are separate tales which have nothing to do with each other. The common thread is the idea of there being a sort of Science FBI agency whose job it is, is to check out the scientifically strange. In that regard, Tors' OSI is a bit like a foreshadowing of the X-Files TV series, but without any of the New Age paranormal focus.
In keeping with the previous two stories, Gog is more of a detective murder mystery movie. Tors was a huge fan of "hard" science, not fanciful fiction fluff, so Gog, like the other two movies, is chock full of reveling in sciencey stuff in an almost geeky way. This reverence for real science keeps things from getting out on shaky limb, as many sci-fi films to. The events are much more plausible, less fantastic.
Synopsis
At a secret underground research facility, far out in the desert, scientists working on preparations for a manned space mission, are getting murdered mysteriously. Two agents from the OSI are dispatched to solve the mystery and keep the super secret space station program on track. The scientists are killed in various ways, mostly through equipment malfunctions. The facility director and the agents suspect sabotage. Small transmitter/receiver boxes are found within equipment in different parts of the facility. They suggest that someone on the outside is transmitting in the "malfunctions" in order to kill off the program's scientists. Occasional alarms indicate some flying high intruder, but nothing is clearly found. One of the base's two robots, named Gog, kills another technician while it's mate, Magog, tries to set up an overload within the base's atomic pile. The OSI agents stop Magog with a flame thrower. Meanwhile, interceptor jets scramble and find the highflying spy jet and destroy it with missiles. Once the trouble is past, the Director announces that they will be launching their prototype space station the next day, despite the sabotage attempts to stop it. The End.
The time spent reveling in techno-geekery has a certain Popular Science charm to it. There's an evident gee-whiz air about space and defense sciences which is fun to see. People were fascinated with things rockety and atomic. For various fun bits, see the Notes section.
Gog oozes Cold War from every frame. First is the base's underground location to make them safe from A-bombs. Next is the mysterious killer trying to stop the space station program. The high-flying mystery plane is "not one of ours." (that leaves: Them, and we all knew who they were.) The space station is to be powered by a solar mirror. Even that benign mirror has sinister possibilities. While demonstrating the mirror, the scientists use it to burn a model of a city. "This could happen...if we're not the first to reach space," says the Director. Space is the next "high ground" to be contested. At the end of the movie, when discussing the launch (despite the sabotage attempt) of the prototype space station, the Director says, "Through it's eye, we'll be able to see everything that goes on upon this tired old earth." The Defense Secretary says, "Nothing will take us by surprise again." An obvious reference to Pearl Harbor.
B-films often re-used props and sets from prior films in order to save on their budgets. Gog, even though shot in Eastman Color, was no exception. Two old prop friends show up in Gog. One is our venerable old friend, the space suits from Destination Moon ('50). Look for the centrifuge scene. The research assistants are dressed in them, and as an added bonus, they wear the all-acrylic fish bowl helmets used in Abbot and Costello Go to Mars ('53). Our second old friend is scene in the radar / security room, (the one with the annoying tuning fork device). Check out the monitor wall. It's been gussied up a bit, but it is the spaceship control panel wall from Catwomen of the Moon and Project Moon Base -- complete with the empty 16mm film reels on the right side. It's fun to see old friends.
B-films often include stock footage of military units, tanks, jets, battleships, etc. to fill things out. Gog is no different, and even commits the common continuity error of showing one type of plane taking off, but a different kind in the air.
What amounts to a small treat amid the usual stock footage of jets, some shots of a rather obscure bit of USAF hardware -- the F-94C Starfire with its straight wings and huge wing tanks. In 1954, the Starfire was one of America's coolest combat jets, yet we hear little about it. The swept-wing F-86 Sabers (which we see taxiing and taking off) were the agile fighter which gained fame over Korea. They're common stock footage stars. The F-94, with its onboard radar (in the nose cone) was deemed too advanced to risk falling into enemy hands. So, it didn't see much action , and therefore little fame. The heavier, yet powerful F-94C (one of the first US jets to have an afterburner) was 1954 America's hottest Interceptor -- designed to stop high flying Soviet bombers. It's blatant cameo appearance in Gog, intercepting the high-flying mystery plane, was a fun little bit of patriotic showing off.
The very name of the movie, Gog, is charged with meaning to American audiences of the mid 50s, though virtually lost on viewers of the 21st century. The names of the two robots, Gog and Magog, come from the Bible. More specifically, from the prophecies of Ezekiel (Chapter 38) and the Book of Revelation (chapter 20). While just who they are (nations? kings?) has been debated for centuries, their role as tools of Satan in the battle of Armageddon is clear. Mainstream American patriotic Christendom had settled on the idea that the Soviet Union was the prophesied "nations from the north" who would join Satan to oppose God. This gives the title of the movie a special Cold War significance. It also puts an interesting spin on the Dr. Zeitman character for having named the two robots in the first place. Since they were tools of the mega-computer NOVAC, what was he saying about NOVAC?
It is interesting that the base's radar could not detect the mystery plane (which was beaming in the 'kill' instructions to NOVAC) because it was made of "fiberglass" which rendered it invisible to radar. Now, fiberglass itself isn't sturdy enough for high-speed jets, and it would take until the 1990s before composite materials advanced to make the dream of a stealth aircraft a reality. Nonetheless, the dream (or nightmare) of stealth aircraft was on-screen in 1954 in Gog.
The super computer, NOVAC, controlled everything on the base. Even though the machines were not really killing scientists on their own, but following human orders from the mystery plane, there was the on-screen depiction of machines having a murderous mind of their own. (all pre-Steven King) In the techno starry-eyed 50s, it was fairly uncommon for the technology itself to be turning on its masters. This idea would gain traction later in the 50s, and especially in the 60s, but in '54, it was unusual.
A cautionary subtext to Gog is the danger of trusting in a supercomputer to manage defenses and a whole base. NOVAC doesn't go bad on its own, as the computer will in The Invisible Boy, Hal in 2001 or Colossus in The Forbin Project. In this movie, it was the nefarious "others" who hacked into NOVAC to make it do the killing, but this just demonstrates the danger. People were getting a little nervous about letting machines take over too much responsibility. We were starting to distrust our creations.
Until Gog, robots were fairly humanoid.
They had two legs, two arms, a torso and a head. Audiences had seen the mechanical Maria in Metropolis ('27), the fedora-wearing metal men in Gene Autrey's Phantom Empire serial ('35). The water-heater-like Republic robot appeared in several rocketman serials. There was the gleaming giant Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) and the cute left over fedora-dudes in Captain Video ('51). The metal giant in Devil Girl from Mars ('54) was also humaniod, in a chunky way. Gog and Magog were a departure from the stereotype. They were noticeably in-human, which was part of the mood.
Bottom line? Gog seems a bit bland, as far as sci-fi tends to go, but it has a lot in it for fans of 50s sci-fi.
The grave of Douglas Adams (1952–2001), nestled in the East Cemetery at Highgate, draws fans from across the galaxy—some even armed with towels, biros, and a deep appreciation for the absurd.
Best known for The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Adams redefined science fiction with a blend of philosophical wit, cosmic satire, and British eccentricity. What began as a BBC radio comedy in 1978 evolved into a beloved book series, a television adaptation, and a cult phenomenon. His number 42—cheekily dubbed the “Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything”—has become immortalised in fan culture, appropriately marked beside his grave.
Adams also wrote for Doctor Who, campaigned for environmental causes, and authored the tech-tinged travelogue ‘Last Chance to See’. His early death at just 49 shocked a devoted global following—but true to his legacy, many still find joy and existential comfort in his unique brand of interstellar nonsense.
Background Note – Highgate Cemetery:
Adams is buried in Highgate East Cemetery, the resting place of other notable figures such as Karl Marx, George Eliot, and Malcolm McLaren. This side of the cemetery, though less flamboyant than the West, is no less atmospheric—offering a quieter, leafy calm. Visitors often leave pens, notebooks, and even cups of tea on Adams’ gravestone, ensuring that he, too, never forgets his towel.
42 Marker: The small metal plaque marked 42 beside the grave is no random marker — it’s a quiet nod to one of literature’s most famously absurd answers. In ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, a supercomputer named Deep Thought determines that the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is, quite inexplicably, 42. It’s become a cult symbol among fans and philosophers alike — playful, mysterious, and weirdly perfect. That it stands here, modestly beside Adams’ headstone, feels entirely fitting.
________________________
La tombe de Douglas Adams (1952–2001) au cimetière de Highgate attire des pèlerins singuliers : fans armés de stylos, serviettes et humour absurde.
Auteur culte de The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Adams a bousculé la science-fiction avec un cocktail irrésistible de satire cosmique et d’esprit so british. Le chiffre 42, réponse ultime à la question fondamentale de l’existence, est ici inscrit sur une plaque voisine — clin d’œil intergalactique.
Également scénariste pour Doctor Who, militant écologiste et auteur de Last Chance to See, Adams a laissé une œuvre aussi brillante qu’iconoclaste. Sa mort prématurée en 2001 n’a fait que renforcer la tendresse et l’admiration que lui portent ses lecteurs.
All ship traffic was stopped due to the annual test closing of the storm surge barriers in the New Waterway. So for a few hours the gateway to Rotterdam was closed for all ships.
The Maeslantkering is a storm surge barrier on the Nieuwe Waterweg, in South Holland, Netherlands. Controlled by a supercomputer, it automatically closes when Rotterdam is threatened by floods. Part of the Delta Works, it is one of largest moving structures on Earth, rivalling the Green Bank Telescope in the United States and the Bagger 288 excavator in Germany.
Brookhaven National Laboratory is arming its scientists and engineers with a cutting-edge tool to advance their research. Brookhaven’s Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN) and the Chemistry Department will use this big boost in computing power, called Blue Gene/Q, to tease out new ways to put nanoscale materials to work. In particular, Blue Gene/Q will decode and map out the complex array of chemical reactions that can occur on a single nanoparticle with greater speed and precision than ever before.
Arsenal (Vienna)
The Vienna Arsenal, object 1
(Pictures you can see by clicking on the link at the end of page!)
The Arsenal in Vienna is a former military complex in the southeast of the city, located in the 3rd district of Vienna. The mighty, consisting of several brick buildings facility is located on a rectangular plan on a hill south of the Country Road Belt (Landstraßer Gürtel).
Meaning
The Arsenal is the most important secular assembly of Romantic Historicism in Vienna and was conducted in Italian-Medieval and Byzantine-Moorish forms. Essentially the complex is preserved in its original forms; only the former workshop buildings within the bounding, from the the outside visible wings were replaced by new constructions.
History to 1945
Bird's eye view of the complex, arsenal, lithography Alexander Kaiser, 1855
Vienna Arsenal (Museum of Military History)
Arsenal, with HGM (Heeresgeschichtliches Museum) from the East
The complex, with a total of 31 "objects" (buildings) was built from 1849 to 1856 on the occasion of the March Revolution of 1848 and was the first building of the fortress triangle, replacing the old Vienna's city walls, with the Rossauer Barracks and the now-defunct Franz Joseph barracks at Stubenring. These buildings should not serve to deter foreign enemies from the city, but to secure state power in the event of revolutionary upheavals in Vienna. The decision to build the Arsenal, it came from the 19-year-old Emperor Franz Joseph I who on 2 December 1848 had come to the throne.
The design for the Imperial Artillery Arsenal came from General Artillery Director Vincenz Freiherr von Augustin, to which, subsequently, the site management had been transferred. Under his leadership, the buildings under assignment of sectors have been planned of the architects Carl Roesner, Antonius Pius de Riegel, August Sicard von Sicardsburg, Eduard van der Nüll, Theophil von Hansen and Ludwig Förster and built by the company of the architect Leopold Mayr.
From 1853 to 1856, Arsenal church was built by the architect Carl Roesner. The K.K. Court Weapon Museum, later K.K. Army Museum, now Museum of Military History, housed in a separate representative free-standing wing, was completed structurally in 1856, but was only in 1869 for the first time accessible.
For the construction of the Arsenal 177 million bricks were used. Construction costs totaled $ 8.5 million guilders. In the following years, there have been extensions. During the two world wars, the complex served as a weapons factory and arsenal, especially as barracks.
The record number of employees in Arsenal was reached in the First World War, with around 20,000 staffers. After 1918, the military-industrial operation with own steel mill was transformed into a public service institution with the name "Austrian Factories Arsenal". However, there were almost insoluble conversion problems in the transition to peacetime production, the product range was too great and the mismanagement considerable. The number of employees declined steadily, and the company became one of the great economic scandals of the First Republic.
By the fall of 1938, the area belonged to the 10th District Favoriten. However, as was established during the "Third Reich" the Reich District of Greater Vienna, became the arsenal complex and the south-east of it lying areas in the wake of district boundary changes parts of the 3rd District.
During the Second World War, in the Arsenal tank repair workshops of the Waffen-SS were set up. In the last two years of the war several buildings were severely damaged by bombing. During the Battle of Vienna, in the days of 7 to 9 April 1945, was the arsenal, defended by the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf", focus of the fighting, the Red Army before its victory facing heavy losses.
History since 1945
Ruins of the object 15 after the air raids 1944
Deposits at the Arsenal Street
After heavy bomb damages during the Second World War, the buildings of the Arsenal were largely restored to their original forms.
In the southern part and in the former courtyard of the arsenal several new buildings were added, among them 1959-1963 the decoration workshops of the Federal Theatre designed by the architects Erich Boltenstern and Robert Weinlich. From 1961 to 1963, the telecommunications central office was built by the architect Fritz Pfeffer. From 1973 to 1975 were built operation and office building of the Post and Telephone Head Office for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland (now Technology Centre Arsenal of Telekom Austria) with the 150-meter high radio tower in Vienna Arsenal according to the plans of architect Kurt Eckel. In the 1990s, a rehearsal stage of the Castle Theater (Burgtheater) was built according to plans by Gustav Peichl.
Also the Austrian Research and Testing Centre Arsenal, now Arsenal Research, which has made itself wordwide a celebrity by one of the largest air chambers (now moved to Floridsdorf - 21st District), was housed in the complex. A smaller part of the complex is still used by the Austrian army as a barracks. Furthermore, the Central Institute for Disinfection of the City of Vienna and the Central Chemical Laboratory of the Federal Monuments Office are housed in the arsenal. The Military History Museum uses multiple objects as depots.
In one part of the area residential buildings were erected. The Arsenal is forming an own, two census tracts encompassing census district, which according to the census in 2001 had 2.058 inhabitants.
End of 2003, the arsenal in connection with other properties of the Federal Property Society (BIG - Bundesimmobiliengesellschaft) was sold to a private investor group. Since early 2006, the lawyer of Baden (Lower Austria, not far away from Vienna) Rudolf Fries and industrialist Walter Scherb are majority owners of the 72,000 m2 historic site that they want to refurbish and according to possibility rent new. Fries also plans to enlarge the existing living space by more than a half (about 40,000 m2).
An architectural design competition, whose jury on 28 and 29 in June 2007 met, provided proposals amounting to substantial structural changes in the complex. Such designed competition winner Hohensinn a futuristic clouds clip modeled after El Lissitzky's cloud bracket, a multi-level horizontal structure on slender stilts over the old stock on the outskirts of the Swiss Garden. The realization of these plans is considered unlikely.
Some objects are since 2013 adapted for use by the Technical University of Vienna: Object 227, the so-called "Panzerhalle" will house laboratories of the Institute for Powertrains and Automotive Technology. In object 221, the "Siemens hall", laboratories of the Institute for Energy Technology and Thermodynamics as well as of the Institute for Manufacturing Technology and High Power Laser Technology are built. In object 214 is besides the Technical Testing and Research Institute (TVFA) also the second expansion stage of the "Vienna Scientific Cluster" housed, of a supercomputer, which was built jointly by the Vienna University of Technology, the University of Vienna and the University of Agricultural Sciences.
Accessibility
The arsenal was historically especially over the Landstraßer Gürtel developed. Today passes southeast in the immediate proximity the Südosttangente called motorway A23 with it connection Gürtel/Landstraßer Hauptstrasse. Southwest of the site runs the Eastern Railway, the new Vienna Central Station closes to the west of the arsenal. Two new bridges over the Eastern Railway, the Arsenal Stay Bridge and the Southern Railway bridge and an underpass as part of Ghegastraße and Alfred- Adler-Straße establish a connection to the on the other side of the railway facilities located Sonnwendviertel in the 10th District, which is being built on the former site of the freight train station Vienna South Station.
On the center side is between Arsenal and Landstraßer Gürtel the former Maria Josefa Park located, now known as Swiss Garden. Here stands at the Arsenal street the 21er Haus, a branch of the Austrian Gallery Belvedere, on the center-side edge of the Swiss Garden has the busy suburban main railway route the stop Vienna Quartier Belvedere, next to it the Wiener Linien D (tram) and 69A (bus) run.
KITT or K.I.T.T. is the short name of two fictional characters from the adventure franchise Knight Rider. While having the same acronym, the KITTs are two different entities: one known as the Knight Industries Two Thousand, which appeared in the original TV series Knight Rider.
During filming, KITT was voiced by a script assistant, with voice actors recording KITT's dialog later. David Hasselhoff and original series voice actor William Daniels first met each other six months after the series began filming. KITT's evil twin is KARR, whose name is an acronym of Knight Automated Roving Robot. KARR was voiced first by Peter Cullen and later by Paul Frees in seasons one and three, respectively, of the NBC original TV series Knight Rider.
In the original Knight Rider series, the character of KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) was physically embodied as a modified 1982 Pontiac Trans Am. KITT was designed by customizer Michael Scheffe. The convertible and super-pursuit KITTs were designed and built by George Barris.
KITT is an advanced supercomputer on wheels. The "brain" of KITT is the Knight 2000 microprocessor, which is the centre of a "self-aware" cybernetic logic module. This allows KITT to think, learn, communicate and interact with humans. He is also capable of independent thought and action. He has an ego that is easy to bruise and displays a very sensitive, but kind and dryly humorous personality.
Starring Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, Philip Van Zandt, and William Schallert. Directed by Herbert L. Strock.
When two scientists at a top-secret government installation devoted to space research are killed -- in their own test chamber, seemingly by an experiment gone awry -- Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is sent out from Washington to investigate. Sheppard mixes easily enough with the somewhat eccentric team of scientists, though he always seems in danger of being distracted by the presence of Joanne Merritt (Constance Dowling), who serves as the aide to the project director Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) but is, in reality, another security agent. Sheppard is as puzzled as anyone else by the seemingly inexplicable series of events overtaking the installation -- properly operating equipment suddenly undergoing lethal malfunctions, and the radar tracking aircraft that aren't there -- until he puts it together with the operations of NOVAC (Nuclear Operated Variable Automatic Computer), the central brain of the complex. But the mystery deepens when he discovers that NOVAC was shut down during one of the "accidents" -- and even the computer's operators can't account fully for the whereabouts of GOG and MAGOG, the two robots under the computer's control.
"...and then without warning, the machine became a frankenstein of steel," says the sensationalist poster text. This is the third story in Ivan Tors' OSI trilogy. His first "Office of Scientific Investigation" story was Magnetic Monster in early 1953. The second was Riders to the Stars in early '54. With Gog the loose trilogy is complete. Unlike the Star Wars trilogy in which the stories build upon each other, each of the three OSI stories are separate tales which have nothing to do with each other. The common thread is the idea of there being a sort of Science FBI agency whose job it is, is to check out the scientifically strange. In that regard, Tors' OSI is a bit like a foreshadowing of the X-Files TV series, but without any of the New Age paranormal focus.
In keeping with the previous two stories, Gog is more of a detective murder mystery movie. Tors was a huge fan of "hard" science, not fanciful fiction fluff, so Gog, like the other two movies, is chock full of reveling in sciencey stuff in an almost geeky way. This reverence for real science keeps things from getting out on shaky limb, as many sci-fi films to. The events are much more plausible, less fantastic.
Synopsis
At a secret underground research facility, far out in the desert, scientists working on preparations for a manned space mission, are getting murdered mysteriously. Two agents from the OSI are dispatched to solve the mystery and keep the super secret space station program on track. The scientists are killed in various ways, mostly through equipment malfunctions. The facility director and the agents suspect sabotage. Small transmitter/receiver boxes are found within equipment in different parts of the facility. They suggest that someone on the outside is transmitting in the "malfunctions" in order to kill off the program's scientists. Occasional alarms indicate some flying high intruder, but nothing is clearly found. One of the base's two robots, named Gog, kills another technician while it's mate, Magog, tries to set up an overload within the base's atomic pile. The OSI agents stop Magog with a flame thrower. Meanwhile, interceptor jets scramble and find the highflying spy jet and destroy it with missiles. Once the trouble is past, the Director announces that they will be launching their prototype space station the next day, despite the sabotage attempts to stop it. The End.
The time spent reveling in techno-geekery has a certain Popular Science charm to it. There's an evident gee-whiz air about space and defense sciences which is fun to see. People were fascinated with things rockety and atomic. For various fun bits, see the Notes section.
Gog oozes Cold War from every frame. First is the base's underground location to make them safe from A-bombs. Next is the mysterious killer trying to stop the space station program. The high-flying mystery plane is "not one of ours." (that leaves: Them, and we all knew who they were.) The space station is to be powered by a solar mirror. Even that benign mirror has sinister possibilities. While demonstrating the mirror, the scientists use it to burn a model of a city. "This could happen...if we're not the first to reach space," says the Director. Space is the next "high ground" to be contested. At the end of the movie, when discussing the launch (despite the sabotage attempt) of the prototype space station, the Director says, "Through it's eye, we'll be able to see everything that goes on upon this tired old earth." The Defense Secretary says, "Nothing will take us by surprise again." An obvious reference to Pearl Harbor.
B-films often re-used props and sets from prior films in order to save on their budgets. Gog, even though shot in Eastman Color, was no exception. Two old prop friends show up in Gog. One is our venerable old friend, the space suits from Destination Moon ('50). Look for the centrifuge scene. The research assistants are dressed in them, and as an added bonus, they wear the all-acrylic fish bowl helmets used in Abbot and Costello Go to Mars ('53). Our second old friend is scene in the radar / security room, (the one with the annoying tuning fork device). Check out the monitor wall. It's been gussied up a bit, but it is the spaceship control panel wall from Catwomen of the Moon and Project Moon Base -- complete with the empty 16mm film reels on the right side. It's fun to see old friends.
B-films often include stock footage of military units, tanks, jets, battleships, etc. to fill things out. Gog is no different, and even commits the common continuity error of showing one type of plane taking off, but a different kind in the air.
What amounts to a small treat amid the usual stock footage of jets, some shots of a rather obscure bit of USAF hardware -- the F-94C Starfire with its straight wings and huge wing tanks. In 1954, the Starfire was one of America's coolest combat jets, yet we hear little about it. The swept-wing F-86 Sabers (which we see taxiing and taking off) were the agile fighter which gained fame over Korea. They're common stock footage stars. The F-94, with its onboard radar (in the nose cone) was deemed too advanced to risk falling into enemy hands. So, it didn't see much action , and therefore little fame. The heavier, yet powerful F-94C (one of the first US jets to have an afterburner) was 1954 America's hottest Interceptor -- designed to stop high flying Soviet bombers. It's blatant cameo appearance in Gog, intercepting the high-flying mystery plane, was a fun little bit of patriotic showing off.
The very name of the movie, Gog, is charged with meaning to American audiences of the mid 50s, though virtually lost on viewers of the 21st century. The names of the two robots, Gog and Magog, come from the Bible. More specifically, from the prophecies of Ezekiel (Chapter 38) and the Book of Revelation (chapter 20). While just who they are (nations? kings?) has been debated for centuries, their role as tools of Satan in the battle of Armageddon is clear. Mainstream American patriotic Christendom had settled on the idea that the Soviet Union was the prophesied "nations from the north" who would join Satan to oppose God. This gives the title of the movie a special Cold War significance. It also puts an interesting spin on the Dr. Zeitman character for having named the two robots in the first place. Since they were tools of the mega-computer NOVAC, what was he saying about NOVAC?
It is interesting that the base's radar could not detect the mystery plane (which was beaming in the 'kill' instructions to NOVAC) because it was made of "fiberglass" which rendered it invisible to radar. Now, fiberglass itself isn't sturdy enough for high-speed jets, and it would take until the 1990s before composite materials advanced to make the dream of a stealth aircraft a reality. Nonetheless, the dream (or nightmare) of stealth aircraft was on-screen in 1954 in Gog.
The super computer, NOVAC, controlled everything on the base. Even though the machines were not really killing scientists on their own, but following human orders from the mystery plane, there was the on-screen depiction of machines having a murderous mind of their own. (all pre-Steven King) In the techno starry-eyed 50s, it was fairly uncommon for the technology itself to be turning on its masters. This idea would gain traction later in the 50s, and especially in the 60s, but in '54, it was unusual.
A cautionary subtext to Gog is the danger of trusting in a supercomputer to manage defenses and a whole base. NOVAC doesn't go bad on its own, as the computer will in The Invisible Boy, Hal in 2001 or Colossus in The Forbin Project. In this movie, it was the nefarious "others" who hacked into NOVAC to make it do the killing, but this just demonstrates the danger. People were getting a little nervous about letting machines take over too much responsibility. We were starting to distrust our creations.
Until Gog, robots were fairly humanoid.
They had two legs, two arms, a torso and a head. Audiences had seen the mechanical Maria in Metropolis ('27), the fedora-wearing metal men in Gene Autrey's Phantom Empire serial ('35). The water-heater-like Republic robot appeared in several rocketman serials. There was the gleaming giant Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) and the cute left over fedora-dudes in Captain Video ('51). The metal giant in Devil Girl from Mars ('54) was also humaniod, in a chunky way. Gog and Magog were a departure from the stereotype. They were noticeably in-human, which was part of the mood.
Bottom line? Gog seems a bit bland, as far as sci-fi tends to go, but it has a lot in it for fans of 50s sci-fi.
I rejoice in what I carry in my heart
it overwelms what a man
Great Emancipation plans,
and public transport, clap your hands, Abraham
Oh religion, superstition,
Man's conditioned mysteries incomplete
thank you all. very very much. for everything <3
ahhh. i love trevor, ashley, morgan, meg, & cass. ahhhlot
HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEXA. i love you, pumpkin.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory unveiled Summit as the world’s most powerful and smartest scientific supercomputer on June 8, 2018.
With a peak performance of 200,000 trillion calculations per second—or 200 petaflops, Summit will be eight times more powerful than ORNL’s previous top-ranked system, Titan. For certain scientific applications, Summit will also be capable of more than three billion billion mixed precision calculations per second, or 3.3 exaops. Summit will provide unprecedented computing power for research in energy, advanced materials and artificial intelligence (AI), among other domains, enabling scientific discoveries that were previously impractical or impossible. Image credit: Carlos Jones/ORNL
So you're thinking to yourself, "Self, what I've really always wanted was a Gradius game that played like Starfox."
Well, self, you're in luck, because such a game does exist. It's called Solar Assault and it was released in arcades way back in the stone ages of 1997.
I had the good fortune of playing it once, and only once, at some random arcade I stumbled through back in college. I remember thinking at the time, "This looks like a Gradius game, but it's called Solar Assault, WTF?"
Flash forward to 2004. I had forgotten all about the game but had started messing around with emulators, and since I had just gotten a new computer (the one I recently replaced) I thought I'd see what it could do.
Turns out Solar Assault wasn't working for MAME back then, but a few years later it sort of worked, only not on my machine because it wasn't powerful enough.
Well I thought I'd see what my NEW machine could do, and wouldn't you know it? A four-core dual thread system can run it just fine. Now I just need to update MAME, because it turns out there's a new version that runs Solar Assault without the bugs that plagued it previously.
Who knew that all you need to emulate a 3D game from 1997 was a desktop that would be considered a supercomputer back in 1992? LOL.
The game runs sort of OK in MAME 0.119, but there's no sound and a lot of lost textures, plus as you can see they look really rough. But it's actually playable and not dog slow like on my old machine. Let me tell you, 3D options are a hoot. I'll update when I get the newer version of MAME running. For now, beddy-bye.
The Apple IIc, the fourth model in the Apple II series of personal computers, was Apple Computer’s first endeavor to produce a portable computer. The end result was a luggable 7.5 lb (3.4 kg) notebook-sized version of the Apple II that could easily be transported from place to place.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIc
Retrocomputing (a portmanteau of retro and computing) is the use of early computer hardware and software today. Retrocomputing is usually classed as a hobby and recreation rather than a practical application of technology; enthusiasts often collect rare and valuable hardware and software for sentimental reasons. However some do make use of it.[1] Retrocomputing often gets its start when a computer user realizes that expensive fantasy systems like IBM Mainframes, DEC Superminis, SGI workstations and Cray Supercomputers have become affordable on the used computer market, usually in a relatively short time after the computers' era of use.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrocomputing
Con il termine retrocomputing si indica una attività di "archeologia informatica" che consiste nel reperire, specialmente a costi minimi, computer di vecchie generazioni, che hanno rappresentato fasi importanti dell'evoluzione tecnologica, ripararli se sono danneggiati, metterli nuovamente in funzione e preservarli.
Starring Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, Philip Van Zandt, and William Schallert. Directed by Herbert L. Strock.
When two scientists at a top-secret government installation devoted to space research are killed -- in their own test chamber, seemingly by an experiment gone awry -- Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is sent out from Washington to investigate. Sheppard mixes easily enough with the somewhat eccentric team of scientists, though he always seems in danger of being distracted by the presence of Joanne Merritt (Constance Dowling), who serves as the aide to the project director Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) but is, in reality, another security agent. Sheppard is as puzzled as anyone else by the seemingly inexplicable series of events overtaking the installation -- properly operating equipment suddenly undergoing lethal malfunctions, and the radar tracking aircraft that aren't there -- until he puts it together with the operations of NOVAC (Nuclear Operated Variable Automatic Computer), the central brain of the complex. But the mystery deepens when he discovers that NOVAC was shut down during one of the "accidents" -- and even the computer's operators can't account fully for the whereabouts of GOG and MAGOG, the two robots under the computer's control.
"...and then without warning, the machine became a frankenstein of steel," says the sensationalist poster text. This is the third story in Ivan Tors' OSI trilogy. His first "Office of Scientific Investigation" story was Magnetic Monster in early 1953. The second was Riders to the Stars in early '54. With Gog the loose trilogy is complete. Unlike the Star Wars trilogy in which the stories build upon each other, each of the three OSI stories are separate tales which have nothing to do with each other. The common thread is the idea of there being a sort of Science FBI agency whose job it is, is to check out the scientifically strange. In that regard, Tors' OSI is a bit like a foreshadowing of the X-Files TV series, but without any of the New Age paranormal focus.
In keeping with the previous two stories, Gog is more of a detective murder mystery movie. Tors was a huge fan of "hard" science, not fanciful fiction fluff, so Gog, like the other two movies, is chock full of reveling in sciencey stuff in an almost geeky way. This reverence for real science keeps things from getting out on shaky limb, as many sci-fi films to. The events are much more plausible, less fantastic.
Synopsis
At a secret underground research facility, far out in the desert, scientists working on preparations for a manned space mission, are getting murdered mysteriously. Two agents from the OSI are dispatched to solve the mystery and keep the super secret space station program on track. The scientists are killed in various ways, mostly through equipment malfunctions. The facility director and the agents suspect sabotage. Small transmitter/receiver boxes are found within equipment in different parts of the facility. They suggest that someone on the outside is transmitting in the "malfunctions" in order to kill off the program's scientists. Occasional alarms indicate some flying high intruder, but nothing is clearly found. One of the base's two robots, named Gog, kills another technician while it's mate, Magog, tries to set up an overload within the base's atomic pile. The OSI agents stop Magog with a flame thrower. Meanwhile, interceptor jets scramble and find the highflying spy jet and destroy it with missiles. Once the trouble is past, the Director announces that they will be launching their prototype space station the next day, despite the sabotage attempts to stop it. The End.
The time spent reveling in techno-geekery has a certain Popular Science charm to it. There's an evident gee-whiz air about space and defense sciences which is fun to see. People were fascinated with things rockety and atomic. For various fun bits, see the Notes section.
Gog oozes Cold War from every frame. First is the base's underground location to make them safe from A-bombs. Next is the mysterious killer trying to stop the space station program. The high-flying mystery plane is "not one of ours." (that leaves: Them, and we all knew who they were.) The space station is to be powered by a solar mirror. Even that benign mirror has sinister possibilities. While demonstrating the mirror, the scientists use it to burn a model of a city. "This could happen...if we're not the first to reach space," says the Director. Space is the next "high ground" to be contested. At the end of the movie, when discussing the launch (despite the sabotage attempt) of the prototype space station, the Director says, "Through it's eye, we'll be able to see everything that goes on upon this tired old earth." The Defense Secretary says, "Nothing will take us by surprise again." An obvious reference to Pearl Harbor.
B-films often re-used props and sets from prior films in order to save on their budgets. Gog, even though shot in Eastman Color, was no exception. Two old prop friends show up in Gog. One is our venerable old friend, the space suits from Destination Moon ('50). Look for the centrifuge scene. The research assistants are dressed in them, and as an added bonus, they wear the all-acrylic fish bowl helmets used in Abbot and Costello Go to Mars ('53). Our second old friend is scene in the radar / security room, (the one with the annoying tuning fork device). Check out the monitor wall. It's been gussied up a bit, but it is the spaceship control panel wall from Catwomen of the Moon and Project Moon Base -- complete with the empty 16mm film reels on the right side. It's fun to see old friends.
B-films often include stock footage of military units, tanks, jets, battleships, etc. to fill things out. Gog is no different, and even commits the common continuity error of showing one type of plane taking off, but a different kind in the air.
What amounts to a small treat amid the usual stock footage of jets, some shots of a rather obscure bit of USAF hardware -- the F-94C Starfire with its straight wings and huge wing tanks. In 1954, the Starfire was one of America's coolest combat jets, yet we hear little about it. The swept-wing F-86 Sabers (which we see taxiing and taking off) were the agile fighter which gained fame over Korea. They're common stock footage stars. The F-94, with its onboard radar (in the nose cone) was deemed too advanced to risk falling into enemy hands. So, it didn't see much action , and therefore little fame. The heavier, yet powerful F-94C (one of the first US jets to have an afterburner) was 1954 America's hottest Interceptor -- designed to stop high flying Soviet bombers. It's blatant cameo appearance in Gog, intercepting the high-flying mystery plane, was a fun little bit of patriotic showing off.
The very name of the movie, Gog, is charged with meaning to American audiences of the mid 50s, though virtually lost on viewers of the 21st century. The names of the two robots, Gog and Magog, come from the Bible. More specifically, from the prophecies of Ezekiel (Chapter 38) and the Book of Revelation (chapter 20). While just who they are (nations? kings?) has been debated for centuries, their role as tools of Satan in the battle of Armageddon is clear. Mainstream American patriotic Christendom had settled on the idea that the Soviet Union was the prophesied "nations from the north" who would join Satan to oppose God. This gives the title of the movie a special Cold War significance. It also puts an interesting spin on the Dr. Zeitman character for having named the two robots in the first place. Since they were tools of the mega-computer NOVAC, what was he saying about NOVAC?
It is interesting that the base's radar could not detect the mystery plane (which was beaming in the 'kill' instructions to NOVAC) because it was made of "fiberglass" which rendered it invisible to radar. Now, fiberglass itself isn't sturdy enough for high-speed jets, and it would take until the 1990s before composite materials advanced to make the dream of a stealth aircraft a reality. Nonetheless, the dream (or nightmare) of stealth aircraft was on-screen in 1954 in Gog.
The super computer, NOVAC, controlled everything on the base. Even though the machines were not really killing scientists on their own, but following human orders from the mystery plane, there was the on-screen depiction of machines having a murderous mind of their own. (all pre-Steven King) In the techno starry-eyed 50s, it was fairly uncommon for the technology itself to be turning on its masters. This idea would gain traction later in the 50s, and especially in the 60s, but in '54, it was unusual.
A cautionary subtext to Gog is the danger of trusting in a supercomputer to manage defenses and a whole base. NOVAC doesn't go bad on its own, as the computer will in The Invisible Boy, Hal in 2001 or Colossus in The Forbin Project. In this movie, it was the nefarious "others" who hacked into NOVAC to make it do the killing, but this just demonstrates the danger. People were getting a little nervous about letting machines take over too much responsibility. We were starting to distrust our creations.
Until Gog, robots were fairly humanoid.
They had two legs, two arms, a torso and a head. Audiences had seen the mechanical Maria in Metropolis ('27), the fedora-wearing metal men in Gene Autrey's Phantom Empire serial ('35). The water-heater-like Republic robot appeared in several rocketman serials. There was the gleaming giant Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) and the cute left over fedora-dudes in Captain Video ('51). The metal giant in Devil Girl from Mars ('54) was also humaniod, in a chunky way. Gog and Magog were a departure from the stereotype. They were noticeably in-human, which was part of the mood.
Bottom line? Gog seems a bit bland, as far as sci-fi tends to go, but it has a lot in it for fans of 50s sci-fi.
The Frontier supercomputer at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory earned the top ranking on May 30, 2022, as the world’s fastest on the 59th TOP500 list, with 1.1 exaflops of performance.
The system is the first to achieve the level of computing performance known as exascale, a threshold of a quintillion calculations per second.
For more information or additional images, please contact 202-586-5251.
www.flickr.com/photos/departmentofenergy/collections/7215...
EnergyTechnologyVisualsCollectionETVC@hq.doe.gov
Sequoia, a world-class IBM BlueGene/Q computer sited at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for the National Nuclear Security Administration, is exploring a broad range of science to shakeout the machine and fully develop the capabilities the system will require to fulfill its national security missions. Located in Livermore's TSF computing facility, Sequoia is a resource used by researchers at the three nuclear weapons labs -- Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national labs. Sequoia was ranked No. 1 on the industry-standard Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers in June, 2012. The system also was No. 1 on the Green 500, as the world's most energy efficient computer, and No. 1 on the Graph 500, a measure of the ability to solve big data problems -- finding the proverbial needle in the haystack.
Starring Richard Egan, Constance Dowling, Herbert Marshall, John Wengraf, Philip Van Zandt, and William Schallert. Directed by Herbert L. Strock.
When two scientists at a top-secret government installation devoted to space research are killed -- in their own test chamber, seemingly by an experiment gone awry -- Dr. David Sheppard (Richard Egan) is sent out from Washington to investigate. Sheppard mixes easily enough with the somewhat eccentric team of scientists, though he always seems in danger of being distracted by the presence of Joanne Merritt (Constance Dowling), who serves as the aide to the project director Dr. Van Ness (Herbert Marshall) but is, in reality, another security agent. Sheppard is as puzzled as anyone else by the seemingly inexplicable series of events overtaking the installation -- properly operating equipment suddenly undergoing lethal malfunctions, and the radar tracking aircraft that aren't there -- until he puts it together with the operations of NOVAC (Nuclear Operated Variable Automatic Computer), the central brain of the complex. But the mystery deepens when he discovers that NOVAC was shut down during one of the "accidents" -- and even the computer's operators can't account fully for the whereabouts of GOG and MAGOG, the two robots under the computer's control.
"...and then without warning, the machine became a frankenstein of steel," says the sensationalist poster text. This is the third story in Ivan Tors' OSI trilogy. His first "Office of Scientific Investigation" story was Magnetic Monster in early 1953. The second was Riders to the Stars in early '54. With Gog the loose trilogy is complete. Unlike the Star Wars trilogy in which the stories build upon each other, each of the three OSI stories are separate tales which have nothing to do with each other. The common thread is the idea of there being a sort of Science FBI agency whose job it is, is to check out the scientifically strange. In that regard, Tors' OSI is a bit like a foreshadowing of the X-Files TV series, but without any of the New Age paranormal focus.
In keeping with the previous two stories, Gog is more of a detective murder mystery movie. Tors was a huge fan of "hard" science, not fanciful fiction fluff, so Gog, like the other two movies, is chock full of reveling in sciencey stuff in an almost geeky way. This reverence for real science keeps things from getting out on shaky limb, as many sci-fi films to. The events are much more plausible, less fantastic.
Synopsis
At a secret underground research facility, far out in the desert, scientists working on preparations for a manned space mission, are getting murdered mysteriously. Two agents from the OSI are dispatched to solve the mystery and keep the super secret space station program on track. The scientists are killed in various ways, mostly through equipment malfunctions. The facility director and the agents suspect sabotage. Small transmitter/receiver boxes are found within equipment in different parts of the facility. They suggest that someone on the outside is transmitting in the "malfunctions" in order to kill off the program's scientists. Occasional alarms indicate some flying high intruder, but nothing is clearly found. One of the base's two robots, named Gog, kills another technician while it's mate, Magog, tries to set up an overload within the base's atomic pile. The OSI agents stop Magog with a flame thrower. Meanwhile, interceptor jets scramble and find the highflying spy jet and destroy it with missiles. Once the trouble is past, the Director announces that they will be launching their prototype space station the next day, despite the sabotage attempts to stop it. The End.
The time spent reveling in techno-geekery has a certain Popular Science charm to it. There's an evident gee-whiz air about space and defense sciences which is fun to see. People were fascinated with things rockety and atomic. For various fun bits, see the Notes section.
Gog oozes Cold War from every frame. First is the base's underground location to make them safe from A-bombs. Next is the mysterious killer trying to stop the space station program. The high-flying mystery plane is "not one of ours." (that leaves: Them, and we all knew who they were.) The space station is to be powered by a solar mirror. Even that benign mirror has sinister possibilities. While demonstrating the mirror, the scientists use it to burn a model of a city. "This could happen...if we're not the first to reach space," says the Director. Space is the next "high ground" to be contested. At the end of the movie, when discussing the launch (despite the sabotage attempt) of the prototype space station, the Director says, "Through it's eye, we'll be able to see everything that goes on upon this tired old earth." The Defense Secretary says, "Nothing will take us by surprise again." An obvious reference to Pearl Harbor.
B-films often re-used props and sets from prior films in order to save on their budgets. Gog, even though shot in Eastman Color, was no exception. Two old prop friends show up in Gog. One is our venerable old friend, the space suits from Destination Moon ('50). Look for the centrifuge scene. The research assistants are dressed in them, and as an added bonus, they wear the all-acrylic fish bowl helmets used in Abbot and Costello Go to Mars ('53). Our second old friend is scene in the radar / security room, (the one with the annoying tuning fork device). Check out the monitor wall. It's been gussied up a bit, but it is the spaceship control panel wall from Catwomen of the Moon and Project Moon Base -- complete with the empty 16mm film reels on the right side. It's fun to see old friends.
B-films often include stock footage of military units, tanks, jets, battleships, etc. to fill things out. Gog is no different, and even commits the common continuity error of showing one type of plane taking off, but a different kind in the air.
What amounts to a small treat amid the usual stock footage of jets, some shots of a rather obscure bit of USAF hardware -- the F-94C Starfire with its straight wings and huge wing tanks. In 1954, the Starfire was one of America's coolest combat jets, yet we hear little about it. The swept-wing F-86 Sabers (which we see taxiing and taking off) were the agile fighter which gained fame over Korea. They're common stock footage stars. The F-94, with its onboard radar (in the nose cone) was deemed too advanced to risk falling into enemy hands. So, it didn't see much action , and therefore little fame. The heavier, yet powerful F-94C (one of the first US jets to have an afterburner) was 1954 America's hottest Interceptor -- designed to stop high flying Soviet bombers. It's blatant cameo appearance in Gog, intercepting the high-flying mystery plane, was a fun little bit of patriotic showing off.
The very name of the movie, Gog, is charged with meaning to American audiences of the mid 50s, though virtually lost on viewers of the 21st century. The names of the two robots, Gog and Magog, come from the Bible. More specifically, from the prophecies of Ezekiel (Chapter 38) and the Book of Revelation (chapter 20). While just who they are (nations? kings?) has been debated for centuries, their role as tools of Satan in the battle of Armageddon is clear. Mainstream American patriotic Christendom had settled on the idea that the Soviet Union was the prophesied "nations from the north" who would join Satan to oppose God. This gives the title of the movie a special Cold War significance. It also puts an interesting spin on the Dr. Zeitman character for having named the two robots in the first place. Since they were tools of the mega-computer NOVAC, what was he saying about NOVAC?
It is interesting that the base's radar could not detect the mystery plane (which was beaming in the 'kill' instructions to NOVAC) because it was made of "fiberglass" which rendered it invisible to radar. Now, fiberglass itself isn't sturdy enough for high-speed jets, and it would take until the 1990s before composite materials advanced to make the dream of a stealth aircraft a reality. Nonetheless, the dream (or nightmare) of stealth aircraft was on-screen in 1954 in Gog.
The super computer, NOVAC, controlled everything on the base. Even though the machines were not really killing scientists on their own, but following human orders from the mystery plane, there was the on-screen depiction of machines having a murderous mind of their own. (all pre-Steven King) In the techno starry-eyed 50s, it was fairly uncommon for the technology itself to be turning on its masters. This idea would gain traction later in the 50s, and especially in the 60s, but in '54, it was unusual.
A cautionary subtext to Gog is the danger of trusting in a supercomputer to manage defenses and a whole base. NOVAC doesn't go bad on its own, as the computer will in The Invisible Boy, Hal in 2001 or Colossus in The Forbin Project. In this movie, it was the nefarious "others" who hacked into NOVAC to make it do the killing, but this just demonstrates the danger. People were getting a little nervous about letting machines take over too much responsibility. We were starting to distrust our creations.
Until Gog, robots were fairly humanoid.
They had two legs, two arms, a torso and a head. Audiences had seen the mechanical Maria in Metropolis ('27), the fedora-wearing metal men in Gene Autrey's Phantom Empire serial ('35). The water-heater-like Republic robot appeared in several rocketman serials. There was the gleaming giant Gort in The Day the Earth Stood Still ('51) and the cute left over fedora-dudes in Captain Video ('51). The metal giant in Devil Girl from Mars ('54) was also humaniod, in a chunky way. Gog and Magog were a departure from the stereotype. They were noticeably in-human, which was part of the mood.
Bottom line? Gog seems a bit bland, as far as sci-fi tends to go, but it has a lot in it for fans of 50s sci-fi.
(WIP pic, more picures and better renders to come)
Name: P.C.S. York
Affiliation: Phoenix Command Group, (vigilante frontier mercenary group dedicated to protecting the innocent, preventing crime, and exposing corruption. Formerly Kolter Mining security division. Formally United Earth Federation (working title) Federal Defense Navy (working title)
Class Name: Monarch class
Type: Fast Battleship
Commissioned: Circa mid 2500’s, pre recent major conflict
Specifications:
Length: 1,221 meters (122.1 studs, 38.5 inches, 97.7 cm model)
Width: 429 meters (42.9 studs, 12.5 inches, 34.3 cm model)
Height: 305 meters (30.5 studs, 9.7 inches, 24.4 cm model)
Crew: 2,700 standard complement + up to 2,000 Star Quest marine detachment and embarked craft pilots and flight crew
Armament: 6 triple-mounted heavy railgun turrets, 8 triple-mounted rapid fire medium particle cannon turrets, 24 dual-mounted medium railgun turrets, 174 quad-mounted 80mm anti-fighter flak railgun turrets
Defensive systems:
Hull: Heavy advanced steel alloy hull with carbon nanotube/buckypaper composite layers as spall lining.
Armor plating: titanium alloy, tungsten, carbon nanotube composite armor layers against kinetic, kinetic spalling, particle, laser, and plasma fire. Composite hull provides excellent survivability at low mass due to the advanced composite design.
Bulkheads: Extensive titanium bulkhead support network.
Structural integrity field: High power system designed for extreme acceleration.
Shielding: Internally housed advanced, high power, rapid regeneration adaptive particle field repulsing shielding system capable of surviving extreme punishment.
Powerplant: 2 primary matter-antimatter reactors with extensive fuel reserves, 2 secondary, and 1 tertiary fusion reactors with extensive fuel reserves. Multiple massive power capacitors. Extensive heatinks.
Propulsion: 3 primary 8 secondary, and 8 tertiary fusion engines for sub-lightspeed travel, 1 internal FTL core capable of high speed, long range travel, 192 reaction control thrusters, and 48 reaction control wheels for below light speed maneuvering.
Computer systems: Multiple supercomputer cores with onboard Virtual Intelligence system, along with extensive redundant backup and antiviral systems.
Comms and Sensors: Local and FTL comms arrays. Radar, LIDAR, infrared, multi-spectral, and additional other local area sensors systems, along with extensive FTL sensors.
High power artificial singularity for both artificial gravity generation and inertial dampening, allowing for 1G gravity under all but the most extreme conditions.
Background: Faced with an aging and inadequate fighting fleet, Earth humanity constructed the Monarch class in the ramp-up to the most recent Great War. These vessels served as advanced, fast battleships well suited to carrier escort duties, rapid border response, or direct ship-to-ship combat against enemy battleships and cruisers.
After the war, the York was purchased by eccentric multi trillionaire David Courtland, and the vessel found new purpose in defending civilians in war-torn areas from pirates.
IRL info. This digital SHIP was made in Bricklink’s Studio software from August 1st to August 11th, 2021. I did not originally plan to attempt to include it in SHIPtember, but it met the requirements for early month. Note that it uses all real piece colors that are available for sale on Bricklink. It is 100% connected, and should be reasonably stable in real life. Although it would require a display stand of some kind. The current pictures are WIP placeholders to show completed status of the build itself. Better renders will hopefully follow before whatever October picture deadline is decided on. Please do not use these early pictures in the poster if time remains, as I hope to provide better ones. Thank you for reading.)
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory celebrated the debut of Frontier, the world’s fastest supercomputer and the dawn of the exascale computing era.
This is one of three "Pegasus" computers sitting on my desk at the moment. The "Pegasus" computer was mentioned yesterday in Jonathan's blog and forms the processing building blocks for what will be the largest and fastest supercomputer in the world, the 500 teraflop "Ranger" computer at Texas Advanced Computing Center in Austin, TX.
We're wiring up 4000 of these puppies together for some seriously high-powered compute capability.
And believe it or not, it runs Windows! TACC will use a Linux distribution. Solaris also works well on this, as does VMware's ESX software.
Sandia National Laboratories engineer David J. Martinez examines the cooling system at Sandia’s supercomputing center. His design for the new system is expected to save 4 million to 5 million gallons annually in New Mexico, and hundreds of millions of gallons nationally if the method is widely adopted. Called the Thermosyphon Cooler Hybrid System, the system cools like a refrigerator without the expense and energy needs of a compressor.
Learn more at bit.ly/2bBUcXq.
Photo by Randy Montoya.
The NASA Center for Climate Simulation (NCCS) Data Exploration Theater features a 17- by 6-foot multi-screen visualization wall for engaging visitors and scientists with high-definition movies of simulation results. Here, the wall displays a 5-kilometer-resolution global simulation that captures numerous cloud types at groundbreaking fidelity. Credit: NASA/Pat Izzo To learn more about NCCS go to: www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate-sim-center.html ( www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/climate-sim-center.html ) NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is home to the nation's largest organization of combined scientists, engineers and technologists that build spacecraft, instruments and new technology to study the Earth, the sun, our solar system, and the universe.