Dr. D Studios won is preparing for the sequel to Oscar-winning ‘Happy Feet’ by upgrading their large render farm from 4096 cores to a nice round 6000, but managed to cut the size down significantly thanks to some help from APC and Equinix.
Sydney-based Dr. D Studios is enjoying the advances in compute density as they fit everything into just 24 chassis, instead of the 250 that it took for the original Happy Feet. James Bourne, infrastructure engineering manager for Dr. D sums it up nice by saying that “back [in 2005], we were working with single-core [Intel] Xeons; as hyperthreading was of little benefit. Each blade had two cores then – now they have eight – and 16 per node should hyper-threading be turned on. Memory density has increased as well now from 1.5GB per node to 24GB.”
Their previous cluster was 4096-cores, and scored number #447 on the Top 500. They currently have 6000 cores running, with power and cooling available to scale up to 12,000, which they plan to do in mid 2011.
You can read more about the datacenter in this article that makes reference to an ‘unnamed’ large HPC customer, which presumably is Dr. D.
Mimas is a small moon that orbits Saturn and looks much like the Death Star from Star Wars. The Herschel impact crater, which is named after the discoverer of the moon and also which gives Mimas its distinctive look, is 130 kilometers across, with walls that are 5 kilometers high.
Cassini recently took a look at the temperatures on the moon and found that they differed from what was expected. If you click on the image to the right, you will see what the expected temperatures were. Where the sun is shining on Mimas is marked by a white star. Instead, Cassini found a completely different temperature profile. Mimas has warm temperatures near 92 Kelvin (minus 294 Fahrenheit), while the colder temperatures are about 77 Kelvin (minus 320 Fahrenheit).
This figure illustrates the unexpected and bizarre pattern of daytime temperatures found on Saturn’s small inner moon Mimas (396 kilometers, or 246 miles, in diameter). The data were obtained by the composite infrared spectrometer (CIRS) on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft during the spacecraft’s closest-ever look at Mimas on Feb. 13, 2010.
It is a bit short, but here is a nice fly through of the Marianas Trench. I wish it was longer, and that they had gone deeper. Of course, they have lighting where there is none in the trench.
This is a flight down into a data visualization of the undersea mountains and trenches of the Pacific Ocean, ending up in the deepest part of the ocean, the Marianas Trench. The “Challenger Deep” is measured at 35,813 feet below the surface, or 10,915 meters. Courtesy of NOAA’s Marine Geology and Geophysics Division.
Imagine driving around a track, having the data recorded by GPS, and then seeing it played back on a video game. Why do that? After all it is more fun driving the car than playing the video game, right? Well, now imagine all the race cars are fitted with this new technology. It is downloaded into the game, and you get to race against the real world drivers in the Indy 500. Cool stuff indeed.
This is the new technology Polyphony Digital (the makers or Gran Turismo) are developing with another aftermarket company to make it so that ones car has data recorded when on the track using GPS technology. Then that data is plugged into a PS3 and then Gran Turismo will simulate that person’s driving. This is shown in this video.
On December 14, 2009, NASA launched the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) telescope. This space-born telescope has a 16 inch diameter and surveys light in the infrared wavelengths. The telescope’s focal planes and optics are cooled with a two-stage solid-hydrogen cryostat. This gives the mission an expected lifetime of 10 months. Over that time, it will take one image about every 11 seconds for about 1.5 million images in total.
We have posted images from WISE before, and even posted a Cosmic Rosebud. Yesterday the WISE team released another beautiful image of a portion of our universe. WISE has taken an image of Comet C/2008 Q3 (Garradd).
This image from the WISE mission was taken on January 2nd, 2010, during the check-out phase, before the start of the WISE survey. It is a mosaic of 3 individual WISE frames spanning an area on the sky about 7 times
the size of the full Moon in portions of the constellations Bootes and Canes Venatici.
In the lower right portion of the image there is a streak of orange light. This is most likely a human-made satellite, orbiting Earth at a higher altitude than the WISE telescope, which is at 523 km above the surface. WISE sees many of these as it scans the sky.
Just above the satellite in the image is Comet C/2008 Q3 (Garradd).
If you own an iPhone or iPod Touch (or maybe if you’ve pre-ordered an iPad), and you work in Stereo Video, then the RealD people have released the App you need to get.
The RealD Professional Stereo3D™ Calculator for iPod® and iTouch® provides a learning and production tool for filming in stereoscopic 3D. Whether you’re a seasoned stereographer or relatively new to shooting in 3D, this easy-to-use stereo calculator will help determine the right setup for your rig, fully taking into account parallax, separation, camera and lens choices, all from the palm of your hand. The RealD Professional Stereo3D™ Calculator can help reduce production time by reporting how subjects will appear in 3D, while maximizing on-set efficiency, particularly with new shots setup on-the-fly.
Now, All this awesomeness doesn’t come cheap, currently going for $299.99 ( ), but it’s a huge amount of functionality that includes everything you need to get your screen, rig, and camera settings ready to go.
BillShrink has posted an infographic taking a look at Billionaires. They start off taking a look at where America’s Billionaires make their money. It is no great surprise that most of America’s Billionaires made it in finance. They then take a look at where they live. My state has zero billionaires, but at least my state was not left off the map like Alaska was. The graphic then expands to take a look at billionaires worldwide.
America’s billionaires are an elite and diverse group of people who either through luck or hard work and strategy have managed to build fortunes that most of us will only ever dream of having. Have a look at how these individuals propelled themselves into the world of the ultra-wealthy and fantasize about what you’d do if you had billions to play with.
Kenichi Tanaka’s final thesis project is an interesting 11-minute infographic video talking about the oddities of the Japanese culture.
This is my final thesis project. I created info-graphic, motion piece. My objective is to make Japanese people to think about that everything happening here in Japan, isn’t that normal. So I created this video from foreigner’s point of view, rather than Japanese people’s point of view.
After a short introduction, it covers 8 different unique areas such as food, diet, and work life.
Update 3/31/2010: Not sure why, but he’s removed the English-translated version. Find the original Japanese version below.
What could make a crater that looks like that? How about the third stage booster rocket from Apollo 13? The Saturn V rocket that launched Apollo 13 consisted of three stages. The first two stages of the Saturn V fell back to Earth. The third stage of the Saturn V rocket launched Apollo 13 towards the moon. On the way towards the moon, at about 322,000 kilometers from Earth, the number two oxygen tank ruptured, damaged the number one oxygen tank, and left Apollo 13 on battery power. Apollo 13 never made it to the moon, and the mission had to be aborted. The Apollo 13 mission was termed a “successful failure.”
Meanwhile, the third stage booster rocket did make it into lunar orbit, and eventually crashed onto the surface of the moon. Its impact was felt by the Apollo 12 seismic station, which was 135 km away. The picture to the right was taken by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC).
On April 14th 1970, the Apollo 13 Saturn IVB upper stage impacted the moon north of Mare Cognitum, at -2.55° latitude, -27.88° East longitude. The impact crater, which is roughly 30 meters in diameter, is clearly visible in LROC NAC image M109420042LE. Credit: NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
PcPerspective has posted its video review of the Nvidia GeForce GTX 480 and 470 graphics card.
sadly this card is EXTREMELY power hungry and may sound ALOT and produce heat warm enough to be able to function as a bbq grill someoen should try that put the card upside down making the big heatsink face up and slap some meat on there
Dr. D Studios won is preparing for the sequel to Oscar-winning ‘Happy Feet’ by upgrading their large render farm from 4096 cores to a nice round 6000, but managed to cut the size down significantly thanks to some help from APC and Equinix.
Kenichi Tanaka’s final thesis project is an interesting 11-minute infographic video talking about the oddities of the Japanese culture.
VizWorld.com 
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