Cal Poly and Downtown

1916 2 0 0 4 MCALIFORNIAustang POLYTECHNIC STATE D UNIVERSITYaily Volume L X V11, Number' 105 Monday, April 5, 2004 M II $ t a n g d a 1 1 y(a^ c alpoly.edu TrI’Countles comes to campus Tuesday : ....... Cal Poly has ■k , *1#' ... ..ir-« $1B economic impact on SLO Study finds that university contributes more than 11 percent to county’s entire $9.4 billion GDP Nicole Angeloni MUSTANG DAILY C'al Boly has a $1.12 billion impact on San Luis Obispo County, according to the latest edi tion of the economic impact study dtiiie by the C^rfalea College of Business. Last summer, professor and chair of finance for the OCX3B Kenneth Reiner and business senior Robert COURTESY PHOTO Rendler conducted the survey as Chair of finance Kenneth Reiner MATT WECHTER MUSTANG DAILY part of Rendler’s senior project. speaks about the impact. A student diverts her attention by squeezing a toy penguin whiie giving biood on campus. This is the sixth edition of the study. studies and figuring it in there. “We came out with this data There was still a big increase in right after Mardi Ciras,” Reiner impact this time around.” said. “So it was pretty good timing The overall impact of Cal Poly in Opositive supply low to remind the community that Cal San Luis Obispo County represents Poly does have a positive impact.” more than 11 percent of the entire Kendrick J. Carson us behind because it is the most needed." The study examines the impact $9.4 billion gross domestic product MUSTANG DAILY According to the Tri-Counties Blood Bank, Cal Poly has on the local economy, of San Luis Obispo County, accord the increase in hospital usage means that an extra ing to the study. This means that of Cal Poly was reccMitly given an award from the such as the university payroll, uni day’s worth of blood must be collected each every $9 spent in the county, more Tri-Counties Blood Bank, commending the uni versity purchases, student spending, month to keep up with the demand. Hospitals than $1 can be directly traced back versity’s outstanding community service after retired faculty and staff spending, must average 150 units of blood per day to keep to Cal Poly. donating 850 units of blood during 2003.pace with the Central Coast. Though hospitals visitor spending, local capital “It was also interesting to discov However, the blood hank has said this year they are have experienced a 5 percent increase in products expenditures, the increased earning er that Cal Poly has a larger eco e.xtremely low on the type O-positive supply. and supply, it is not enough to combat the esca power of local Cal Poly graduates Local hospitals are experiencing an increasedlating need. and other categories. Reiner andnomic impact than Diablo Canyon, demand for blood due to the population growth. “We would love to see regulars bring in a friend Rendler also factored in the impact which has a $640 million econom The recent climb in overall population and its or relative to donate,” Kleman said. “Also, it would of the many visitors the university ic impact,” Reiner said. density in the area have caused an increase in thebe great if people would give blood twice a year draws to the area. Employment at Cal Poly also local hospital’s blood usage and resulted in a short instead of only once. Everyone can do little things “In this edition, we also took greatly influences the economy in age of type-O positive blood. to help out in the big picture.” into consideration impacts like San Luis Obispo County. The uni “O-positive blood is the most common type out At the beginning of this month, the O-positive retired staff and faculty spending,”versity creates about 10,5(K) jobs, there,’’Tri-Counties Blood Bank communications blood level entered its seventh week at a critical Rendler said. “But we accounted which is estimated to be 10 percent relations employee Mona Kleman said. “It has put see Blood, page 2 for that by going back to other see Impact, page 2 Hundreds meet in San Randsco to create supercomputer Experiment organized to build a machine with the same hundreds of millions of dollars. some lugging their monitor-less houses three full-size basketball capabilities as some government, corporate computers “Flashmob is about democratizing desktops in wheeled suitcases. courts. While the event didn’t attract supercomputing,” said John Witchel, Volunteers included programmers, as many volunteers as expected, the Terence Chea University of San Francisco who a USF graduate student who code self-described “computer geeks,” university and some private compa ASSOCIATED PRESS wanted to see whether a gymnasium veloped the concept. “It’s about giv teenagers, college students andnies helped pick up the slack by full of off-the-shelf personal comput ing supercomputing power to the researchers curious whether flash lending their computers. SAN FRANCISCO — ers could muster enough power to people so that we can decide how we mob supercomputing could be used Organizers had hoped to break into Hundreds of technophiles wiredprocess the most complex research want supercomputers to be used.” for their own projects. the ranks of the world’s top 500 super together their laptops and desktops problems. Saturday’s event, known as “I just want to be part of history,” computers by generating more than recently and succeeded in their grass Supercomputers perform highly “FlashMob I,” was designed to mea said Glenn Montano, a USF senior500 gigaflops of power. A powerful PC roots bid to create a computing sophisticated functioas such as predict sure how much computing power majoring in computer science. can generate about half a gigaflop.The force on par with the world’s most ing weather patterns, modeling biolt^- hundreds of networked computers When the experiment began top spot is held by Japan’s Earth powerful computers. ical processes or animating movies. could generate, rather than to tackle three hours later, organizers said 660 Simulator, used to simulate weather The Saturday experiment in Most are run by government labs or a specific task. desktop or laptop computers had patterns with about 35,(KX) gigaflops. “Flashmob Supercomputing” was big corporatioas because they’re so Participants began trickling into been connected by thick bundles of Saturday’s flashmob managed to organized by researchers at the expeasive — running from millions to USF’s Koret Gym around 8 a.m., wires throughout the gym, which see Computer, page 2 Carrey shines in Kaufman movie W I \ I M I It It I I’« > K I ‘Eternal Sunshine’ is fragile, provocative comedy T o d a y ^ Tld*i IN ARTS & CULTURE, page 5 Mostly Sunny 64 High 4.7 at 10:47 a.m. Sun, sandals and spring Low 0.5 at 4:40 p.m. TXj e s d a y SUNRISE 6:43 A.M. Classes no longer focus o f Cal Poly students Partly Cloudy 6 6 SUNSET 7:28 P.M. IN OPINION, page 4 NEWS 2 Monday, April 5,2004 No, it wasn’t just an April ple hats or spinning in circles — Fools’ Day joke. Computer then quickly disperse, leaving continued from page 1 Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain Mustang Daily’s new look, bystanders scratching their heads. implemented Thursday, is a com generate 1 SO gigaflops — an impres To create their supercomputer, plete revamp in the design and sive amount of power, but not Flashmob volunteers booted up did more than entertain orgafiization of the paper’s identity. enough to make the Top 500 list. Linux open-source softw'are that The redesign was the senior Still, organizers said they were connected their PCs to a high-speed Gene Johnson “Music at that point was so pre project of art and design senior thrilled with the results, which vali network and formed a single com ASSOCIATED PRESS fabricated, so fake, so hairspray that Brooke Finan and graphic com dated the concept of flashmob puting system.The software, designed Nirvana was really a breath of fresh ABERDEEN, Wa.sh. — Beneath munication graduate Lisa Arias. supercomputing. by USF researchers, runs on each air,” CaTss says. “It was more organic this bridge above the muddy banks Their goal was to add organiza “This proves that this kind of computer’s Cd^-ROM and doesn’t than anything we'd seen in music in of the Wishkah River, a troubled tion and consistency to the lay computing can be competitive with touch its hard drive — so participants years.” young Kurt Cobain would come to out and incorporate a look of computers that cost tens of millions didn’t need to worry about security As his fame soared, though, so did escape his unhappy home and the professionalism and maturity. of dollars,” Witchel said. or viruses, organizers said. his heroin use, in part as a self-treat persistent gray drizzle of the “After working at the Daily for The term “flashmob” comes from Saturday’s event wasn’t the first ment for his chainic stomach pain. Washington coast. tw’o years, 1 wanted to leave with the spontaneous Internet-organizedtime citizens have pooled their com Encouraged by his wife, Courtney Among the cracking concrete more th.in just an appreciation tor gatherings that gained popularity puting power. For example, the Love, who had her own drug prob supports, he would smoke pot and the accomplishments we’ve made last year. During the events, hun SETl (at) home project has created a lems, Cobain checked into detox drink and plot his stardom, bragging v\nth the content of the paper,” dreds of people suddenly appear at virtuala supercomputer, through several times over the next 2 1/2 to friends of his “suicide genes” and said Finan, who is also the produc predetermined location, perform a Internet-connected PCs, to search years.

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