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Thursday, March 26, 2020
National lab supercomputers to help fight COVID-19
Remember the BG/L - That stood for Blue Gene / Livermore. The Blue was indicative of Big Blue, IBM's moniker in the computing industry, Gene was the intended use, genetic research and L was were it was sited. It came in the door and was placed in the unclassified world as intended but the raw speed it produced (surpassing Purple which hadn't arrived yet) got the attention of the weapons team and it was swung over to the classified network and "repurposed". Since that time, powerful machines have been brought to the open computer centers and the "original" purpose of BG/L has been brought to bear to the nation's needs such as this.
The labs are nuclear weapons labs, not epidemic modeling labs. This stuff should not be done at the labs, there is already way too much mission creep. Since when did the labs ever epidemic modeling, biology, or sandbox science?
I can't speak for LANL, but Livermore had a biomed department up and running when I started at the LLNL in 1974. Since when did the lab do biology, well at least since then. Shift a few parameters around and I bet NARAC would be able to model airborne biological hazards. They were online (as ARAC) for Three Mile Island. It's not mission creep, it's leveraging the tools and the talent to the needs of the nation.
7 comments:
Remember the BG/L - That stood for Blue Gene / Livermore. The Blue was indicative of Big Blue, IBM's moniker in the computing industry, Gene was the intended use, genetic research and L was were it was sited. It came in the door and was placed in the unclassified world as intended but the raw speed it produced (surpassing Purple which hadn't arrived yet) got the attention of the weapons team and it was swung over to the classified network and "repurposed". Since that time, powerful machines have been brought to the open computer centers and the "original" purpose of BG/L has been brought to bear to the nation's needs such as this.
The labs are nuclear weapons labs, not epidemic modeling labs. This stuff should not be done at the labs, there is already way too much mission creep. Since when did the labs ever epidemic modeling, biology, or sandbox science?
With LANL's history of contamination events, the last thing it should be doing is bio research.
I can't speak for LANL, but Livermore had a biomed department up and running when I started at the LLNL in 1974. Since when did the lab do biology, well at least since then. Shift a few parameters around and I bet NARAC would be able to model airborne biological hazards. They were online (as ARAC) for Three Mile Island. It's not mission creep, it's leveraging the tools and the talent to the needs of the nation.
What is the problem with every US facility with relevant capability contributing to the fight against this pandemic? You see a difficulty with that?
3/28/2020 5:27 PM: scope of funding and little legal matters like appropriations laws...
Like you're a lawyer? Not likely. Presidential emergency directives "trump" all that bureaucratic crap.
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