You can build a mainframe from the things you find at home

Budget supercomputer - $2,500 for 26 gigaflops | Science Blog

In January of 2007, they began to piece together their system and by March, they were running tests to see just what Microwulf could do. In the end, the project came in under budget with Microwulf donning a price-tag of just $2470. With current hardware prices, another system like Microwulf would cost half of what it cost Adams and Brom to build earlier this year.

(Via wcg; Calvin College press release here; project website here.)

The system is using four microATX motherboards with AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ AM2 CPUs -- I could go down to Fry's and build one tonight if I wanted to risk the flower_cat's wrath. Or I could wait until my kids' new computers arrive, bring home my work laptop, and fire up my workstation. I'm already wired for GigE.

(Extra points to the first person who can explain why the userpic is appropriate.)

Home again, home again...

Picked up the chaoswolf at the airport yesterday evening, home from six weeks with her fiancé (selkit) and ready for home cooking. (She made dinner tonight -- a salad, and porkchops with a barbecue sauce based largely on honey, lemon juice, and espresso. Yum!)

Spent most of the evening preparing packing material for tomorrow's preorder mailings, reading LJ, and listening to Nancy Freeman (nimuejohn)'s Stardust County. Wow! Probably a good thing I didn't listen to it while I was working on CC&S, or I would have been too intimidated to finish. It's gorgeous. Go buy a copy.

Somehow the house seems more complete with both kids here, even when they're both upstairs asleep.