June 15, 2009, 8:31 am
Last week a Silver City, NM newspaper published a commentary by Paul Gessing, the president of a NM political nonprofit called the Rio Grande Foundation that agitates for “limited government” among other goals. The title of the commentary clearly indicates the author’s point of view, “Supercomputer a waste of taxpayer money.”
The supercomputer in question is Encanto, of course, the big SGI machine built by the state of New Mexico in 2007; in that year the machine was number 3 on the Top500. We predicted here back in February of 2008 that selling this project within the state as one that would pay for itself by selling cycles was a recipe for trouble. Evidently we were right, as the state hasn‚Äôt brought in much revenue relative to the investment…
