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  1. “IBM’s Watson is not really a supercomputer, it is a cluster of 90 Power7 750 servers. I think I saw orders for more than that come into the company I work for last quarter.”

    Scott;

    In today’s world, supercomputers are mostly made by clustering servers. This is how I make my living these days: selling the fiber optic cables that are used to cluster these servers together.

    I think CMU is right. I’m starting to think that Lech and I were focused on different aspects of a related, but not the same, problem. I’ve got to think about it some more.

  2. bxg: It would seem from all the back and forth that statistics is not an absolute science. If 3 guys who seem to know a lot about the subject can’t agree, well…

    Au contraire, it is absolutely an exact science. The back-and-forth here is a result of their discussing different problems… Just like it’s a quite different probability of two birthdays in the group being the same vs. you and another person having the same birthday.

    dcb:2. The exact same number of people are born on each day of the year. I have no idea if this is true. However if it is true, out of a group of 367 people there is 100% probability that 2 will have the same birthday. If not true then the problem is way more difficult.

    Wrong. If you have 367 non-twins, it’s irrelevant what the statistical distribution of people born on different days is. Two of ’em (at least) will have the same birthday (in a non-leap year)

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