Re: supercomputing....
Excel can do quite large iterative models - like 3 million rows worth - on a modest older laptop. Same laptop and LibreOffice 4.early and oOo 3.sommat are struggling. The OpenCL patch helps restore balance rather than giving [open|libre]office any kind of edge.
Have a look at
Data Smart: Using Data Science to Transform Information into Insight by John Foreman for giggles. He gives out a free chapter on his book site. You can work through the chapter using either Excel or Calc (latter v4.5 or later as Pivot Tables look similar)
Biting the hand that feeds IT
