This just in: Virginia Tech's G5-based supercomputer, dubbed "Big Mac" by the quick wits of the tech community, has not officially improved in performance in the past two days-- and yes, given the rate at which that sucker's been boosting its score, that most certainly is news. For now it's holding steady at 9.555 teraflops, which firmly establishes it as the third-fastest supercomputer in the world. Sliding into second is pretty unlikely at this point, seeing as it would need to squeeze out another four teraflops or so over the course of the next couple of weeks-- but with more optimizations to come, Big Mac has a solid shot of making its mark on the charts with a double-digit score.

At least, that's what Dr. Srinidhi Varadarajan said at O'Reilly's Mac OS X Conference, and he's the Big Mac Daddy quickly finding himself thrust into the heady vapors of Tech Superstardom. Faithful viewer David Triska directed us to a fascinating MacDevCenter article about Varadarajan's appearance at the conference, and it's just jam-packed with nifty fun facts about the Big Mac cluster which kept the audience hanging on his every word. Wouldja believe that the project only really kicked off last March? And that Varadarajan was still trying to buy Dells when Apple announced the G5 on June 23rd? Yes, he found out about the G5 at the same time as the rest of us-- maybe even later, since we're all slavering Mac fans hanging all over the latest rumors like a cheap suit, whereas when Varadarajan placed his "fairly large order" at the Apple Store three days after the Stevenote, he had never actually even owned a Mac before.

By the way, if you want to be like Varadarajan, head on over to the Apple Store and toss 1,100 dual Power Macs in your cart. It's a rush. "Find out how to get your order for $70,808 per month!" (Just make sure One-Click is turned off, or you might have some 'splainin' to do when that credit card bill shows up.)

But back to the issue of that performance score: Varadarajan confirms that the "latest numbers are 9.555 tera" and the folks at Virginia Tech "still have more tricks left" to try to snake another 10% before the official score deadline to become "the first academic machine to cross 10 tera." No wonder Varadarajan was being treated like, in the words of WIRED, a "nerd superhero." Big brains in the field positively gushed over the man's prowess; Derek Bastille of the Arctic Region Supercomputing Center says he was "blindsided" by Varadarajan's "incredible" achievement. The audience gave him a standing ovation. Nerd groupies threw underwear on stage and then tailed him into the bar after the show. But what do you expect? The guy built the world's third-fastest supercomputer in seven months from a standing start, and did it for $5.2 million-- a mere pittance among the supercomputing set.

Sounds like it's time for the man to sign some endorsements, doesn't it? After all, it's either that or start wearing rhinestone jumpsuits and doing karate onstage. Since Varadarajan has "received calls from other supercomputing sites" asking for his secret, it's obvious what will come next: Varadarajan bought the Macs that comprise his cluster online at the Apple Store, so what could be more natural than ready-made clusters sold on Apple's site? One click gets you the 1,100 Power Macs, the Infiniband high-speed networking equipment, all the cooling gear you'll ever need, and 700 pizzas to feed the student volunteers who'll set it all up. Doc Varadarajan's Instant Big Mac: now available for just $5,200,000.00. (Add $19 for custom engraving.)

"Ladies and gentlemen, Srinidhi has left the building!" Thankyuhverruhmuch.