Comments on: No Free Lunch- Not Even a Data Snack

By: Isaac Hametz

Isaac Hametz — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:16:28 +0000

David, I am not taking the class (I chose to take a course that explores how decommissioned military sites can be reused as sites for ecological and social defense), however, a good friend of mine is and I will certainly keep you posted. In terms of your question about focus, the course is intended to explore the spatial dynamics and allied systems associated with information technology. It is not solely focused on environmental impact, but on the broader impact these centers have and can have on the networks they are connected to (including the people who maintain them, etc.). There are manifold reasons they chose the “big bad center” including the far reach the center has (ecologically, socially, historically, etc), the prestige of the original designer (Eero Saarinen), the location of the building (rural NY State), and I’m sure there are more.
What drew you to ask questions about datacenters/information trails?

By: David Arfa

David Arfa — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:49:45 +0000

Thanks for your comments- I’m learning as I go as well Deborah- Kind of amazing. Amazing how much is blind to us about our everyday lives.

Jesse- enjoy these resources- they are just a start.

Isaac- interesting class- are you taking it? It seems to focus on the “biggest and baddest” supercomputer around- different emphasis than your everyday run of the mill datacenters- but still great to explore all these implications. Often data centers have no windows or fresh air flow into them because people who maintain them are less valuable than the servers themselves. One ‘bright’ side to this is that new efficient fresh air cooling systems is good for the people too. As to this course, it sounds ambitious to cover the context of people making the computers along with the users in addition to the datacenter itself. The datacenter is just one part of the whole data life cycle. I’d be curious how much broader philosophy versus the focus of environmental impact will be covered in this course. Please keep us posted! Thanks. David

By: David Arfa

David Arfa — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 10:49:44 +0000

By: Deborah Klee Wenger

Deborah Klee Wenger — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 05:32:46 +0000

Wow! I had no idea — thank you, David!

By: Isaac Hametz

Isaac Hametz — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 13:52:33 +0000

David, it just so happens that this fall at the University of Virginia School of Architecture a professor name Michael Beaman is teaching a studio course on the design, use, and maintenance of Data Centers. He is specifically looking at the TJ Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. This is course description:
“In 1911 the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation was founded, by 1922 it had become IBM. In 1985 at the age of 22 Garry Kasparov became the youngest World Chess Champion. Along with being an important year for chess, it was an important year for technology: First Compact Discs are released for public sale, First version of Windows released, Nintendo sales its first home gaming system, Steve Jobs resigns from Apple and stats NEXT (creating apple’s operating platform), The first domain name “symbolics.com” is created. Just 12 years later in 1997, the fates of Kasparov and IBM would be forever intertwined. Deep Blue, an IBM Super Computer, and Kasparov faced off in a series of six Chess matches – Kasparov lost. Deep Blue can calculate 200 million chess moves per second (approx. 11.38 GigaFLOPS) or 11, 380,000,000 point calculations per second. The fastest super computer currently being built (Fujitsu K) runs at 10.51 PetaFLOPS, or approximately 10,510, 000,000,000,000 calculations per second – about I million times faster than Deep Blue. Super Computers today take up entire buildings and require their own heating, cooling and ventilation infrastructure, support staff and maintenance technicians. Watson, IBM’s proto-AI computer which competed on and won Jeopardy in 2011 is small in comparison. Rather than taking an approach of massively parallel hardware, it ushered in an era of software development that more intelligently utilized computational capacity through contextual analysis. Deep blue crunched massive amounts of data to search for solutions to closed set problems, Watson on the other hand establishes conditional parameters to address open ended questions. Both of these approaches continue to be developed and employee thousands of scientist, programmers, researchers, and technicians worldwide. However, they currently have no implications on our understanding of the spatial and programmatic relationships they create. This studio will examine this situation. We will design for the impact these computers have on: those who work with and create these computers, the public who consume its information, the landscape that is created by their production and use and the buildings built to house, use and maintain them. We will address this situation through the creation of: contexts, contextonomies, and postscripts. In 1961, IBM moved from its research facility in a renovated house near Columbia University, which it had occupied since 1945, to the T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. The center, designed by Eero Saarinen, is the home of advanced research including the development of the super computers Blue Gene, Deep Blue and Watson. This is our site. Through the creation of a comprehensive contextual analysis we will define our design problems.”
What do you think?

By: Jesse Glickstein

Jesse Glickstein — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 13:58:27 +0000

Very interesting post. Thanks for all the great resources!