Apr302010

U-C is crazy … Strange Accident on Elm and Springfield

US

The second strange thing since I moved here two months ago. Well, I was working as usual … and suddenly heard a really loud bang. My reaction was to check the weather (online) if there was a thunderstorm. Nope … ok, more working. Then I heard several Police sirens, and they stopped nearby. Of course, I checked and saw police cars next to my apartment. Eleven at night is not the typical time to socialize with your neighbors but everybody was on the street. There was a car wreck, a complete wreck! And some eye witnesses who told me that the crash happened probably after a pick-up which was speeding down Springfield (guessed >80 mph) apparently chased by a Sheriff hit another pick-up in the side. I was told that the driver of the one truck ran away naked (?) but was caught soon after. The other guy was pulled out of the second truck by the rescue unit. We hope he survived. Here are some pictures …

accident1_small
accident4_small
accident31_small
The truck on the right seems to have caused the accident.

accident2_small
Someone being arrested.

accident5_small
The truck was missing the back axis (!). The thing on the right is the tool-box and a wheel and an oil can were about 50m (!) away.

Some links:
http://www.wicd15.com/newsroom/top_stories/videos/wicd_vid_2281.shtml
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/courts-police-and-fire/2010-04-30/champaign-woman-killed-crash-bond-1-million-man-custody-dui.h
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/courts-police-and-fire/2010-05-01/man-accused-fatal-collision-has-long-court-history.html
http://www.news-gazette.com/news/courts-police-and-fire/2010-05-01/police-make-arrest-while-trying-rope-crash-site.html

Apr242010

Welcome to Blue Drop!

HPC • MPI • Science

We got our POWER7 780 (MR) System on Friday and I just logged in :-). I’m alone on something like this:

htor@bd01:~> w
 20:49:12 up 1 day,  1:01,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
USER     TTY        LOGIN@   IDLE   JCPU   PCPU WHAT
htor     pts/0     20:35    0.00s  0.04s  0.01s w
htor@bd01:~> cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
cpu             : POWER7 (architected), altivec supported
clock           : 3864.000000MHz
revision        : 2.1 (pvr 003f 0201)

processor       : 1
cpu             : POWER7 (architected), altivec supported
clock           : 3864.000000MHz
revision        : 2.1 (pvr 003f 0201)
........
processor       : 127
cpu             : POWER7 (architected), altivec supported
clock           : 3864.000000MHz
revision        : 2.1 (pvr 003f 0201)

timebase        : 512000000
platform        : pSeries
model           : IBM,9179-MHB
machine         : CHRP IBM,9179-MHB

It’s SMT=4 though (so “only” 32 cores) but with sweet 128 GiB memory. With 4 FMAs per cycle, that’s 983.04 GF/s, nearly one TF in a single “rack” (that thing below)!

I particularly like the name … we all hope that the drop will quickly fill up a bucket full of water(s) :-).

89928771
(credits: Steve Kleinvehn, original)

Apr12010

Not an April fool’s joke …

US

Wow, the weirdest April 1st ever. I was just biking to UIUC and saw somebody jumping from one of the tallest buildings in Urbana-Champaign. Around 9:10am, he decided to jump from Burnham 310 (an 18-story apartment building) right when I was biking by (like every morning). I didn’t really see which floor he came from as I only heard him screaming. I believe I heard at least 2 seconds of scream with a Doppler Effect. I had enough time to locate him while falling down and hitting the flower-bed with numb noise about 20m away from me (I biked on the other street-side). I stopped in shock (there was another guy much closer who seemed also shocked, and a police car). Before I decided to go and see if the person was alive, I heard the ambulance (it took less than 60 seconds to arrive, amazing). From all I could see, he hit the ground head-first (seemed like from a height of 50m) so I wouldn’t expect that he was alive. I left the site after the ambulance arrived but I’m available for a police interview if needed (I don’t really know more than I wrote here though).

Update: it seems like the man survived even though he jumped twice (landed on the smaller building and jumped again).

Update 2: the man (a Civil Engineering Ph.D. candidate) died in the hospital.

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/courts-police-and-fire/2010-04-01/person-jumps-upper-floor-burnham-310-building.html
http://www.dailyillini.com/news/champaign-urbana/2010/04/01/man-pronounced-dead-after-fall-from-18th-floor-window

Two pictures from the building:
burnham1
burnham2
and the broken window:
broken_window