...are all at National Labs, which says something to me.
The Frontier Computer at Oak Ridge.
One used to be able to sign up to allow researchers to run routines on one's computer when not in use. I'm not sure if that system is still in place.
I am not immune from frivolous use of my computer, but I can say that the bulk of my personal scientific knowledge derives from Google Scholar guided access to electronic access to University Libraries.
My life was changed for the better when I had this access. It used to take me hours and hours simply to find one or two relevant papers to a topic that I needed to understand - and often I'd be disappointed with what that labor found - whereas now I can easily call up 20 or more papers in ten minutes, and run keyword searches in them when downloaded to get right to the "meat."
I certainly believe that the demand for electricity for computational power can do quite a bit to advance the use of nuclear power which may be the most important unintended side effect. This is not driven, to my mind, by the fact that nuclear power is environmentally and morally superior to all other forms of energy. Rather it is driven by reliability, an unintended consequence of the frivolity beyond better uses.
To me is not quite the same as endorsing the car CULTure, or, as is the case with my own hypocrisy condemning that CULTure while using it.
I think computational power is a route out of the hole we've dug for ourselves.
Recently I was informed by an antinuke here that the reason China has been able to build and bring on line more than 50 nuclear reactors in the last 20 years is that they "didn't ask for 'permission'." (That's another power that computers bring to us, the ability to understand how much ignorance is in the world, and to confront it.) I asked the functional idiot whose permission they should have requested, "his, hers or theirs." Whose "permission" will we need to determine how and when to use our computers? The Orange Pedophiles? Kegsbreath's? "I wannabe Roger Taney" Roberts? Pubic hair flosser Thomas? Drunken frat boy rapist Bret Kavanaugh's?
That's a dangerous slope if ever there was one.
To me, neither DU, nor Google Scholar, nor the electronic documents in University repositories (libraries) are frivolous. These uses are, to my mind, the essence of true freedom, the fifth freedom not mentioned by FDR, the Freedom to see and understand.
In this case, as in others, this genie cannot be put back in the bottle.
I support servers.
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