8 PS3's and then you can destroy the world!

I spotted this article on Hotair:

Astrophysicist Replaces Supercomputer with Eight PlayStation 3s

...Prior to obtaining his PS3s, Khanna relied on grants from the National
Science Foundation (NSF) to use various supercomputing sites spread across the
United States "Typically I'd use a couple hundred processors -- going up to 500
-- to do these same types of things."

However, each of those supercomputer runs cost Khanna as much as $5,000 in grant money. Eight 60 GB PS3s would cost just $3,200, by contrast, but Khanna figured he would have a hard time convincing the NSF to give him a grant to buy game consoles, even if the overall price tag was lower. So after tweaking his code this past summer so that it could take advantage of the Cell's unique architecture, Khanna set about petitioning Sony for some help in the form of free PS3s.

That last paragraph is just another example of what happens when the government gets involved in doling out cash. The costs of doing something goes up, when you compare trying to do the exact same thing where government is NOT involved, it ends up people find cheaper, more creative ways to meet that goal.