Parallella Community

I've got a Zedboard (Zynq-7020 based) and have a project for generating Mandelbrot Fractals, it clocks at 300 MHz, performing two complex 36-bit fixed-point MACs per cycle, giving me 700M CMACS per second. (This is using only 24 of the Zynq's 220 DSP blocks).

Once I get the Frame buffer out of the Zynq's block RAM (which is harder than it sounds...) I'm hoping to get around 5,000M CMACs.

The first I want to do is see how the Parallella stacks up, in not only performance but code development time.

Once I've (re-)learned C and gotten the hang of parallel programming, I want to use it to play with artificial neural networks - probably using some complex virtual environment and artificial evolution, or possibly finding new applications for deep learning.

I'll be doing video processing for facial recognition.

Assessing the options still - it seems that there might be some limits in architecture for a few design ideas. It may be used by my kids or in tutelage if the features I need are not in the SoC.

Multi-core is neat - but they need to have order and control. I have not seen the API/interface for programming via the control plane.

My initial goal is to use this as an opportunity to get back into C programming and to start learning parallel programming. Afterwhich, I plan to use this platform to further explore my interests in AI, distributed computing, image analysis, and signal analysis, in the hopes of applying this to both optical and radio astronomy.

I am a simple Windows PC user and would like to use Parallella as a main computer for Internet, Office, Video, Music and other apps. It is a nice occasion to dive into Linux and open up horizons.

Salutations,
Many of you state that you are interested in using the Parallella for learning purposes. I think that is fantastic! With that in mind I would like to ask a favor.
I am a complete beginner, but after reviewing the information about Adapteva and the Epiphany / Parallella, I am extremely interested in learning how to program for it. My question to you all: Where do I begin? As a complete novice, I can say that I am a quick study and work with logic scenarios very well, but I am looking for a solid starting point. Eventually my goal will be to create a new OS that will work with this parallel architecture, potentially with a new File System. What language would be a good starting point, and are there any specific resources you could recommend?

I am a blank slate looking to learn, please assist!
Thank you in advance.

It would be cool if someone would make an audio player for it with a near perfect reconstrucion DA converter (very long sinc filter and high frequency 20 bit DA converter), Would sell it to me, especially with network access!