These supercomputers could be yours

A photo extravaganza

Our last Supercomputing items are on the lighter side.

Here we have one of IBM's stellar Blue Gene systems. You might first notice the flower down on the lower left side. Nice of IBM to dress up its boxes like that. Flowers don't look at all out of place inside a massive convention center with Big Iron everywhere. We couldn't help but wonder if there was a listening device in the soil.

Sharp readers will also see a weird blue mark on the top right of the system.

Could it be?

Yes, some joker put an Itanic Inside magnet on the Blue Gene box, which is supposed to run on IBM's own Power chips. We can't imagine who would do such a thing.

Last and possibly least, we'd like to spark a caption writing contest for this gem. Is this just a man filming an Orion system or something much more sinister such as a man-to-computer communication interface?

Send your ideas here. ®