There is an AP story circulating in Florida newspapers that IBM Corp. and The Scripps Research Institute want the federal government to pony up $500 million for some of their research on computer models to track the spread of bird flu. Why Florida? Because they also want Palm Beach Country and the city of Boca Raton to fork up $20 million to put their supercomputer facility in Boca Raton.
I guess what I would most like to say to the IBM Corp. and The Scripps Research Institute is this:
are you out of your fucking minds? $500 million dollars? And another $20 million that could be used for local public health in Palm Beach county?
Who do these guys think they are? Halliburton?
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Now Revere...I'm sure that there are many good people within the IBM agency and that many of these people want nothing less than for your computer to work every day.
You shouldn't make banket statements about them like this. It will affect morale...and that would not help going forward as we and IBM face this challenge together.
/;0)
Models can be useful. However, models are only as good as the data put into them, and i don't think we have enough data to realistically model flu pandemics. What might be useful is more modeling of the HA subunit with various polymorphism changes.
IBM saw profits rise 11% in the second quarter (link in the url box). I think they should reinvest rather than expect us, the tax payers to support them. This is just another example of the rampant corporate greed that has become so common here in America.
Hi Tom and others. I sent this particular little tidbit to Revere as I knew his total sarcasm on something like this would be well worth it to read.
Let me repeat his statement, "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?!!!!!!" This is not to USE a supercomputer that exists boys and girls, its to BUILD a super computer. Uh, we will all be dead before they get the bugs out of it (no pun). Cray made the biggest and baddest assed computers for a while and then we decided that there were only two agencies that needed them, the CIA and the NWS. Everyone including the IRS could get by with some cheesy 200 million dollar computers.
Tymp if you are out there pipe up buddy. You are in the business and there aint no damned reason to do this. A model is indeed useful, but who in hell is going to be around to input the data collected if the friggin flu arrives. Sheyit! They are government workers for god sake, they will be on sick leave and the 30 plus days a year of bullshit time off. Very French. Besides after the first 2.5 million whats a few corpses amongst friends? Jesus H. Christ! You can bury a lot or buy backhoes to build the mass graves with that kind of money. MODELS..? They will be only as accurate as the data and whoa, the first mutation in a pandemic will throw their calculations into the trash heap. Uh, this stuff mutates????? Why dont we just build a toroid super atom
520 million? Let me reiterate how many food rations that equates too at Government price-16 million. If you are going to blow money do it for something that is really needed. Thats one hell of a lot of Chef Boyardee! We will have more Katrina's, earthquakes, and terrorist attacks. The one thing we dont have is food on the shelf.
So once again, "Are you out of your fucking mind?" 520 million could be well spent to support the states to help out with pandemic flu health care. Gimme a damned break!!!!!!!!! Next week they will be asking for a grant to ExxonMobil...Of course it will be for drilling oil!!!!
Good thing I didn't know we could use such language when I was describing the WHO (gutless wonders)...good for you Revere...now just turn that gun of yours a little bit...no a little to the left...that's it.
Randolph Along with your comments about computers...why don't we take the money being wasted on antivirals and vaccines and put it to good use...infrastructure, broad-spectrum antibiotics, oral electrolyte powders, anti-fever drugs and prednisolone (each of these are proven treatments and can be used at home with the advice of a healthcare worker on phone or computer and will save MILLIONS OF LIVES)...Thanks for listening!!
The reveres use a mac.
So, um, who is going to own the intellectual property created by this fabulous gizmo?
It must be the dog days of summer or too much sun or something...the writing here and on flu wiki is just getting better and better and funnier and funnier...This is great!!
'Doomed to repeat it' and 'Hey Pal. Got a half a billion' are honestly as good as I have ever read...don't stop now...tell us what you really think!! and thanks to all.
$500 million would BUY New Zealand!Not such a bad idea.Think about the wide open spaces,scenery for Africa,mountains,rippling streams,cow-cockies and their dogs herding cats,err sorry,meant sheep.Peter Jackson making panoramic films,milk only 2 bucks per litre,happy rosy-cheeked children and plenty of Tamiflu available...err...On second thoughts,perhaps not.Bad idea.
500 billion,squillion whatever.My eyes water at much less than this stuff.
How quickly we forget the last boondoggle, MIDAS.
That told us that if there are more than a few people who sicken with influenza in Thailand, the virus would emigrate and world will become infected.
This was of course shocking news. Nobody without spending ten million or maybe fifty million would have known this to be true.
The IBM folks are late to the game.
IMO, this is a meanspirited, vicious grab at taxpayer money.
Over at FT now, the high powered thinking regarding source and track of this virus is going on, via PC's and intelligent people.
Maybe IBM could ask two of its intelligencia to join Flu Trackers? That would save us $500 million and a lot of wasted time.
One MIDAS is enough. IBM is obviously on its way into the trashbin of history.
What congressional officeholder is supporting this? Names??
Its good to see two different ends of the spectrum coming together when the world needs us. This damned things specifications would make any IT guy start to drool. Calculations per second in the Tetraflop range. The first computer was housed in a gymnasium, then we went to PC's. This thing will be back in a gym because of size and will draw from the specs I saw something on the order of 240,000 watts of electricity when its not running. Thats just to keep it warm.
Hell. Tymp would love this thing. He would probably leave the Rockies to visit it on the weekends. He might propose marriage. Yes they did on their first date.
Dont we have an economically depressed area already with tons of computing power....uh,er, itsa.....Silicon Valley?
I smell pork, barbeque, bacon.......oink, oink, oink. Can I eat it during a pandemic?
Tom DVM....Yeah, they want your computer to work everyday. Thats the reason IBM sold their PC business to the Chinese!
IBM became Lenovo. I guess rather than making 500 million off of marketing, beating the other guy, they just plan to back door us.
R.
I wonder what Jeb's (Bush) input is on this one. The state of FL has many incentives to get big business to settle in the state. I'd be interested to hear how much tax relief, etc. these same companies were promised.
It seems in many areas of FL, that the median income is less than the national norm, while the median housing prices are significantly higher. A great number of FL wage earners are employed in low paying, service industry-type jobs. These incentives are an attempt to bring in high(er) paying salaries.
BUT...not this!
So, we've seen what has been asked for at the federal and local levels...I would be VERY curious to hear if there has been any state enticements.
Nsthesia. I am a BIG republican and I picked up the phone and hit a few of my contacts. They didnt know a thing about it in the regional circles. If this is being pushed now in front of an election then they aint thinking too straight and they will need a front end alignment after this crash.
No, the state representatives knew nothing about it. Nor did anyone apparently other than Scripps and Big Blue. The stupid thing about this is that its not needed. A general model yes has already been developed and guess what? Its at the CIA and DoD. They are used for biowarfare and that may be more so what Revere is alluding to. I have seen some of those models before. I understood only the spread of a contagion such as animal borne pneumonic plague, or ebola. Both were suggested as possible for weaponization but we politicized it out of existents for production, not defense. So it meant that you take really bad bugs, make them worse. Then say to Congress the Chinese/Russians/French and we need more money for defense research. Meanwhile som bozo over in Beijing gets wind that we are making up a super botulism and then they start their counter program.
Look, none of these guys are crazy. They know that they computering power of a super Cray XMP or whatever the designation is now for maxicomputer is not to run biological simulations. YOU CAN RUN ANYTHING ON IT! Applied physics programs, biological gene sequencing for probable offshoots, designing vaccines etc. You can also simulate a nuclear blast and make a whole new group of nukes by using the computer for the simulation. You gather that data from atom smashing and particle research on super colliders. Oh, it aint for biology I can tell you.
But it would be good for the local economy. Its so depressed in Boca Raton that they actually had to take pay cuts to 100,000 a year to fuel boats down at the dock. Tsk,Tsk.
MRK,
It's always nice to have friends in low places. ;) I am surprised there was no info on this from the Economic Development arena.
You know, that extra $20 million would be imperative just to pay for INSURANCE COVERAGE for that mega computer building in hurricane-land. IF they could FIND insurance coverage.
Nsthesia. You might be right about the insurance thing. Boca Raton at its highest point is only 18 feet ASL. Katrina kicked a 32 foot high wall of water six miles into places in Mississippi. Boca has rivers and also lays near three canals (pathways) back into the city and beyond for miles. Yep, better put it on the fifth floor just in case.