According to Top500.org, a web site that tracks the
most powerful supercomputers in the world, the IBM SP
Power3 supercomputer housed within the MHPCC clocks in
at 837 billion floating-point operations per second,
making it one of 25 most powerful computers in the
world. Co-owned and operated by the University of
Hawaii and the U.S. Air Force, the machine divides its
computer cycles between the number crunching tasks
associated with military logistics and high-temperature
physics research.
Simply put, the MHPCC is a unique place, a place where
the brainy culture of science and engineering and the
laid-back culture of the Hawaiian islands coexist in
peaceful equilibrium. A slogan on the lab's 2000 web
site sums it up: "Computing in paradise."
It's not exactly the kind of place you'd expect to find
Richard Stallman, a man who, when taking in the
beautiful view of the nearby Maui Channel through the
picture windows of a staffer's office, mutters a terse
critique: "Too much sun." Still, as an emissary from
one computing paradise to another, Stallman has a
message to deliver, even if it means subjecting his
pale hacker skin to the hazards of tropical exposure.
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