http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10181725.stm
Strewth that's quick 1,759,000,000,000 calculations per second
Check out how long 1 seconds worth would take a PC
But where are we? tip bottom right hand corner!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10187248.stm

Now the serious bit.
Without proper access and training for real computing power Australian brains are going to migrate to where they can do proper research. How can we do high end research with the computer equivalent of steam powered technology bar one?

We need as a nation at least 2 more high end computer centres for basic research. This doing commercially salable research science for today and tomorrow WE need science for 20 year on and beyond.

Without them we as an academic powerhouse is going to become and also ran, we need to lift our game. We clearly are slipping, I see these super computer rankings as an example of multiple (Australian) government's failures financially starving our universities and long term/reaching research. IMO one more example of 'get elected, short term mentality of a flawed self interested party system.
We priorities/policy that look further out, pollies with the guts to back them, and a population that can accept a need to ensure the FUTURE.

What do you think?

Examinator, before you worry about trying to do advanced research requiring super computers, may I suggest you need to get more experience of the real world?

You blame the government for not providing the computers you want. Well, the fact is that governments are to blame for that, as well as a great many other things that are going wrong. Don't tempt me to provide a list! Until you fix the rotten system that governs us, all the wonderful research you want to do will be pretty much worthless. And fixing governments does not need super computers. It just needs you, and a few millions like you,to use your commonsense.

Examinator....you ask:

Now the serious bit.
Without proper access and training for real computing power Australian brains are going to migrate to where they can do proper research.

Of course the answer is ELSEWHERE.

Which leaves the poor old masses of Jack and Jillaroos wandering around playing with our 3rd world situation while more and more Jacks and Jills are left socially marginalized and economically disenfranchised.

They don't have the brains to be 'super computer high end whizz kids' but they can work a lathe or milling machine.. or push a pen.... but hey..that was in 2010.. now it's 2020 and all those jobs are now being done by Chinese or Indians via high speed internet connections..or by very efficient transport arrangements.

I can pack a product today.. send it by 2.00pm and it will be in Singapore at the door of my customer by 10.00am the next morning.
That's better than jolly Couriers Please to the very next suburb.

I can receive an email from a previously unknown "supplier" in China hawking their ability to do Printed CircuitBoards at the highest quality and fastest turnaround possible.. you think "This is TOOOo good 2b true" Then..you follow up, do due dilligence.. even ask for CREDIT sight unseen, and then..GET exactly what they promised.. done and sent up front.. no money.. 30days.. it's all real, and true.

OH BUT WAIT.. our 'SERVICE' sector will save us.. absolute rubbish!

hmm ok.. maybe out MINING sector will save us? sure.. except that China has discovered massive deposits of various Ores in Tibet...Oh.. nowwwww we know why that long rail link was done ...right?

Ok..our EDUCATION export sector will save us? Yep.. we will educate foreign students who go back with their Computer science degrees and reasonable Aussie Accents to Bangalore and take more call centre or R&D jobs which operate via email and skype connections.

Then....when we kick up a fuss.. we get smacked around by "Human Rights" bodies who tell us our complaints are 'racist and xenophobic'.

Welcome....to the future.

That's a highly likely scenario, Boaz, in my view.

"The world is changing" is one of those massive clichés that we use without thinking, but - like most clichés - it has a hard core of truth.

I don't actually see the reduction in our horizons as too much of a problem though. We have a great climate, a massive land-mass with open spaces that our northern neighbours can only dream about. If our future is to be a holiday destination for the next few generations, then so be it. There's no shame in that.

We have after all brought it upon ourselves. You only need to compare the work ethic of our fellow citizens with those who are our business competitors, to see that we have become - in general - fat and lazy on the prosperity we have enjoyed for the last sixty years.

Others have in the meantime been slowly pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. It's their turn.

Access to computers is irrelevant. Even if we had them available, the people flocking to spend twelve hours a day, doing head-down bum-up research are unlikely to be Aussies.

They're all out surfing.

Forkes and other

Of course it's the government system, that has progressively defunded universities and prime research resources. That was my point!
The poor old CSIRO doesn't rate a mention for computing power. Why not? As our primary National research organization it should have a slew of High*er* end number crunching boxes. Strewth! Even Poland has *more* higher end boxes than us!
Some years back the CSIRO was changed from doing pure research to doing commercially based research. Universities were made so corporately sensitive that pure research to benefit Aussies has been neglected.

Even when unis come up with bright ideas they are 'partnership' funded, in effect cheap R&D for corps.
As I said, at some point the question has to be raised what happens to the NEW discoveries, they tend to be maximised off shore.
Like raw materials we get the cheap end of the market, The BIG profits finish up in the hands of others.

Commercialism of research only works if we have the cash to control it afterwards.

We as a nation put in the least amount of money into research...why? It doesn't win votes amongst the myopic self interested great unwashed or Corporations that unjustly influence our Govt. Both would rather cheap consumer nick nack toys that make profit and blame someone else for not having a country with a great independent future.

Well Pericles...for a welcome change I agree pretty much entirely with you on this bit at least:

//We have after all brought it upon ourselves. yada yada//

This is exactly why I was trying (in vain) to draw you (who has more first hand knowledge than some here) to the discussion of the UK economy.

The point you raised about Tourism is one, and sadly one of the few, bright spots on the economic horizon but I doubt it will mean much as European economies self destruct and the 'travel euro' becomes scarcer by the day.

Any country MUST have 'originating' income or value generation to offset the cost of it's imports.

-Dig stuff up and sell it. (Mining..Coal..Oil..Gas)
-High Tech manufacturing (where only a few boffins make the $$$ and the product is manufactured in China
-TOURISM..
-Education.

There isn't much else.. because all that we might be good at service wise will become increasingly off shore centred. We cannot rely in education export because there will be a voter backlash eventually.

'IT' is a dead loser.. Malaysia's Cyber Jaya India's Bangalore, and other emerging countries will eat us on that stuff.

I saw all this coming a decade ago Pericles which is why I have enough land to live off.

I am currently doing contract work with a company where it is transitioning as much as can be, to China..and I am watching the glazed eyed furrowed brows of those remaining workers.. specially after 3 were let go last week, who are wondering about the/their futures. (there are only 5 in the section) and the other sections.... electronic circuit board assembly..are in the process of being replaced by Chinese outsourcing..I don't know if they even know it yet.

Let's hope you are not driving through the Western Industrial suburbs of Melbourne when the poo hits the social fan.

We are like the Greeks.. fertility rate of 1.3..they are dying.. they just don't realize it yet.