GCaP Class: Odds and Sods

Some interesting side discussions came up in class:

• Cat Brain: IBM Almaden announced a supercomputer brain-simulation (called C2) in which the number of simulated neurons and synapses exceeds those in a cat brain^† (from Josh B)
  
• MARS: A MapReduce Framework on Graphics Processors (from Josh B)
  
• MapReduce ported to R (from Josh B)
  
• Tsung: FOSS distributed load-testing harness written in Erlang (from Greg S)
  
• GPUs are the new CPUs (from NJG)
  
• SmokePing: Another Tobi tool (from Josh B)
  

Today, we wrap up and Guerrilla Level-2 certificates will be awarded to all attendees (as proof of purchase).

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† The claim has since elicited a clawing missive from researchers working on EPFL's BlueBrain project. Quote from the project leader: "[it's] not even close to an ant's brain." (from GCaP 2008 alumnus, Stefan P.)