• My Father in law’s new toy!

    Date: 2005.07.21 | Category: Knitting Without Needles | Tags:

    I got to watch the ribbon cutting ceremony through an online video feed for my father in law’s new toy!

    Who knew a computer needed a glam shot? Nice!
    Not bad eh?

    Oh what is it? A supercomputer of course! It is Big Ben. The Cray XT3 named after the Steeler rookie Ben Roethlisberger (they like to name their computers after Pittsburgh team stars the last one was named LeMieux) It’ll do 10 trillion calculations per second!
    Well now they have finally invented a computer that will keep up with the brain of a stay at home mom!
    Actually, if every person on Earth, about 6.5 billion people, held a calculator and did one calculation per second, they would altogether still be 1,500 times slower than Big Ben.

    Seriously! This took alot of work on his part. Hob nobbing with Senators and other statesman to secure a $9.7 million grant from the National Science Foundation, which meant many many trips to DC.

    So hat’s off to him! Great job! Now can I get a little time on that baby to do some calculations for a knitting pattern I am working on? It’ll only take a second! Really!