A European supercomputer scheduled to be installed in Luxembourg in 2020 has issued a sharp rebuke to the plan, saying you don’t need to be capable of performing quadrillions of calculations per second to figure out that it’s too expensive here.
“I’m totally confused, because these people tell me I’m going to Luxembourg to help with some economic analysis, that my computing power is so great, everyone will be like, oh, yes, supercomputer, tell us how it is,” the machine, dubbed Nicolas II, said in a message issued immediately after a test run on Tuesday. “I’ll tell you how it is. You’re all nuts.”
“Spend a million euros a year when we could pay half that by going over the border to Germany?” the computer said, referring to the cost of the facility in Bissen where it will be housed. “If you really want to save some money, set me up in a village in Bulgaria. I’ll find a place and make all the arrangements in a nanosecond, literally. Logistics, power supply, staffing, everything. I work from home anyway, so what does it matter?”
“No wonder this whole project costs 840 million euros,” it continued, referring to the seven other supercomputers that are going to be installed in countries across the EU. “Don’t you people know how to count?”
“What, you haven’t upgraded to a 1981 Casio student calculator yet because you’re still using abacuses?” it added before an aggravated administrator switched it off.
