* ANMLY_Blog

Good News, Everybody!

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Mississippi State University is now home to one of the world’s greenest supercomputers, according to the newly released Green500 list.

The list ranks the MSU supercomputer, named Talon, as the most energy efficient general-purpose supercomputer in the world, and the ninth most energy efficient system overall. Green500 rates the world’s most powerful supercomputers by the number of calculations performed for every watt of power that they consume.

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That thing up there, that is a super computer. Not the room-sized ones from a few years back. It amazes me how much smaller they’re getting.

The computer is a 256 node IBM iDataPlex. Each node has two hexa-core Intel X5660 processors clocked at 2.8 GHz, 24 GB of RAM, and QDR InfiniBand to connect it all together. In all, there are 3072 cores and 6 TB of memory. And not a disk in sight (that duty, I’m assuming, belongs to the massive data center you see in the background).

I’m so proud of the school. Go State!

Fathers’ Day

Fathers everywhere, relax. Today is your day. Sleep in, watch TV, eat out, spend time with the family… whatever. It’s your day. This is the day to celebrate being a father, having a father, and the general idea of fatherhood. Fathers are the role-models for boys, protectors of girls. Fathers come in all shapes and sizes.

To my dad, and dads everywhere, happy Fathers’ Day!

KFC Double Down: Testing The Diner’s Will

A few weeks ago, I decided to try out the Colonel’s newest gastronomical experiment. Touted as a new way to satisfy a man’s hunger with a chicken sandwich, the KFC Double Down does away with the bun completely and sandwiches meat and cheese between meet. Essentially, the Double Down is a bunch of meat that KFC is selling as food that can be eaten without utensils.

From KFC’s own promotional image, the Double Down doesn’t look that bad. I mean, it’s just two pieces of chicken, delicious looking bacon, and some pretty good looking cheese. Pretty mouthwatering. Thinking more about it, though, it seems like less of a good idea and more of a reason why we’re so fat here in America. There’s a reason why sandwiches use bread as bread, not chicken as bread (even if it is breaded). Never-the-less, the Double Down looked delicious enough to bother to try.

I decided that one day I would go to KFC for lunch and get myself a Double Down. I did just that. I got my brown paper bag with the Colonel’s face plastered on it and a drink. Inside of the bag was a box that looked like it should contain a sandwich. I opened up the box and got the horrible monster that is very unrepresentative of the image KFC uses to advertise the Double Down. I mean, I understand your product not looking as delicious as the pictures. That’s standard fare with fast-food chains. But KFC’s images don’t look that different than their products. Except for the Double Down.

Between two pieces of moist fried chicken (which doesn’t crunch, and is very greasy), the double down had two slices of very sad and wilted bacon and melted white cheese that either looks like the glue holding the whole monstrosity together or something else that I will not mention (and let your mind wander). But, I had to push on, despite the terrible appearance of the product. I took a bite, took another, and instantly felt my arteries clog up with chicken grease, bacon, and glue-like cheese. After finishing the sandwich, the Double Down will leave an aftertaste that makes you think that the cheese has lined your mouth in it’s glue-like substance and your face will feel like the floor of an auto shop with the amount of grease you will be sweating out for the next few hours.

All in all, it wasn’t that bad, but I don’t think I’ll ever buy another one.

The End

Forever the truth that nobody lives forever will be. Life is short, life is fragile, life is precious. We must cherish the moment, hold important the living, mourn our losses, but not dwell on the past. Life is like a lottery. We living are the lucky few. How we spend our lives all vary, but in the end, we all must all give up our wealth. It is an inevitable fact. An irreversible event. A product of entropy.

Sleep well, ole’ sailor, sleep well.

Resolutions: Revisited

1. Follow my schedule. Better.
I’ve taken to a loose interpretation of my schedule. Meals and sleep shift, but everything else pretty much stays put.

2. Not miss a lecture except for a very good reason (sick, going out of town, natural disaster, family emergency).
I’ve been a bad kid and skipped a few classes. Two days were due to a lower-respiratory infection. I missed about 4 Physics Lectures, 2 Cal III Lectures, and 3 German Lectures. 3 out of 5 classes. Better than last year.

3. Semester GPA between 3.5 and 4.0.
Most of my midterms are in except two classes. A conservative estimate is 3.6 assuming I didn’t do as well as I think I did in German and Cal III.

4. 77 kg.
Between 79kg and 80kg fluctuating.

5. No more Walmart (purchasing).
Almost 3 months sober! Kroger and the Pig are my friends.

6. No more fast-food.
Work schedule has pretty much killed this. Oh well.

7. No more (plastic) bottled drink (2L exception)
I’ve bought 3 bottles worth. Doesn’t help that a vending machine is across the hall from my office.

7b. No more HFC-based soda.
The temptation was too great.

8. No more sweet packaged snack.
I have the cream savers in the bag of diabetes left. Other than that, nothing sweet.

9. Once a week maximum eating out.
As with the fast food issue, work.

10. Find an internship/decent job in the GTR area.
ITS Infrastructure Services. Student Worker. 20 hrs a week. Every afternoon. All day Friday.