LCI Workshop 2007

Well I managed to get a slight break from work this week and chill out in the Linux Clusters Institute Workshop, which happens to be hosted just down the street from my office. Today was the first day so I don’t have a ton to comment on; however I can say that I’m thoroughly enjoying it. The event started off a bit slow…then escalated with what appeared to be a battle of the nerds (sorry guys, but comp-sci programmers are a completely different species of geek). For instance, the opening speaker prefaced damn-near everything with “as a particle physicist”. Sometimes it made sense…sometimes not. Here’s an example:

Makes Sense:
“As a particle physicist, it’s important for me to apply most efficient processor architecture when calculating the effect of one star cluster’s gravitational pull on another.”

WTF:
“As a particle physicist, I recommend tying your shoelaces in a double-knot.”

OK…OK…I’m exaggerating a bit… although I was incredibly tempted to ask whether or not crossing the streams of my particle accelerator would result in some form of galactic implosion. Perhaps spending the day with a room full of PhDs was a reminder of what a monumental academic failure I’ve been. Of course I would have to rethink my domain name; as www.drdrbond.net would just be silly. Anyway, these guys really seem to have their act together. With course instructors consisting of various respected members of the academic and HPC community, there is really no shortage of resources.

Today was mostly an introduction to HPC/Grid Computing, but the next three days definitely hold promise of a good time. I’ll update with more information later. Course content is detailed in the Workshop Schedule.

I think the highlight of my day was the following quote (slightly paraphrased); delivered during a discussion (nerd fight) in regards to choosing an appropriate processor architecture:

“Don’t talk to me about CPUS! The CPU is dead! If you want to have a serious conversation about compute processing, talk to me about sockets and cores!”

Friggin’ awesome… I love it.