Sunday, January 31, 2010

Your Tax Dollars= 1700 PS3s for the US Air Force!!

So the USAF in Rome, NY is ordering about 1700 PS3s to make up a total of over 2000 PS3s altogether. Lets see... about 300 dollars per a PS3 multiplied by the number of those machines they are purchasing. Well, they say its for a "good" cause.

They are making a supercomputer that they will use to show the way our brains process information and how it recognizes content. What they are really doing is playing "2000 simultaneous games of God of War III".

They believe that by using PS3s they will use ninety five percent less power than a regular super computer.

Okay, sooo what? The US Air Force playing God of War III with our tax money is what I am hearing. Since when were they so curious with how the human brain "functions"? I dont know about you guys but I see that as thousands of dollars down the drain. I really don't know what to make of it.

10 comments:

Patrick Huynh said...

This actually gave me a good laugh after I read it. But hey, at least they're telling us what our tax dollars are being spent on rather than being all secretive about it. Although the fact that the USAF is actually spending the money on PS3 is quite disturbing. I mean, we've always wanted to know where our tax dollars go right? Maybe the USAF should have hotlines where people can call and complain too. who knows ;D

Yvonne Lee said...

It was really unnecessary for the USAF to be spending so much money on the PS3s. We don't need a supercomputer that demonstrates how our brain processes information and recognizes content. They should be spending our tax money wisely instead of making supercomputers.

Franklin Wu said...

I think the both of you are overreacting to something that seems absurd at face value. PS3's are rather powerful and with the way they were designed, they are extremely efficient compared to today's super computers. Also, if you keep up with what the Air Force is attempting to do, you will know about their attempts in completely autonomous vehicles and weapons. And to do that, they are trying to model them after human behavior, everything from learning to judgment. Knowing that, buying a lot of PS3's doesn't sound nearly absurd but rather a logical step.

Franklin Wu said...

If this will ease your mind a little.. PS3's do actually have a use..

http://www.axcessnews.com/index.php/articles/show/id/19037?31

Scott Silton said...

They could buy PS3s for the airmen to play on the their downtime. Heck, a lot of air force missions are being "flown" by remote control systems that look an awful lot like video games. That it is part of a research project is even better.

Lily said...

Thats true. Just the news comes across as absurd at first sight. I don't follow what the Air Force does on a month to month basis but I guess if they are willing to let out that this is what they are doing then they must have a good reason for that.

This makes the research product for both sides (the PS company and Air Force) better. ;) (oh lets make it even more realistic!!)

Chris said...

This news was pretty amazing. I think it's pretty cool that they will use multiple PS3s to make a super computer. It would be nice for them to also use it for recreation too.

Jodi Miller said...

I can just imagine a bunch of Air Force guys sitting around playing Call of Duty as a part of their "training"...but in all seriousness, I think that they are using the systems for something other than gaming. Whether that be a system to study brain function or a way to practice flying remote control planes, it's something else...I hope.

Victor H. said...

I don't see why they had to buy the actual PS3 and then go through the effort to link them all together...wouldn't it have been easier to just sign a contract with Sony to purchase the internals of a PS3 and design a single unit to contain them?

While I find the fact that they are buying PS3's somewhat amusing and ridiculous, I have to agree that clustering PS3's is a great way to get high processing power for cheap. When the PS3 first emerged on the market, a distributed computing project called Folding@Home started to make use of networked PS3's to study the molecular structure of proteins.

Franklin Wu said...

Victor, I think they did this the way they did because of bureaucratic ways. If they wanted to sign a contract, I think they would have to put up a bid..etc.. and that's something they wanted to avoid.