So I flew to Eilat, demostrated how a little accelerated computing worked relative to a cluster. What really got to me was how simple a demo it was. The fingers never left the hands, and all that. We ran a HMMer run on the cluster, then a Scalable HMMer run on the identical data set. Then we ran an 8 way cluster run using MPI-HMMer, again, running the same data and options.

Fox News is reporting him missing at sea. He was sailing on the west coast, in the SF Bay area. I hope for the best, though things are not looking good. Jim Gray is one of those few scientists who is a universalist, he has made contributions across a broad spectrum of research. Many scientists pick one sub-field, and hyper-specialize in that, creating esoterica with abandon. Dr. Gray’s contributions are broad based and deep, he appears able to work comfortably in many fields with many researchers.

Suppose you had an opportunity to get some applications (open source and otherwise) onto CCS. Which apps would you like to see? I have my own list, but I would like to hear yours. I ask as I know most apps run great on the current mainstream clusters. You know, those myriad of Linux units. What are your major concerns in getting apps on there? Right now there is a defined lack of apps on CCS.

There is a tendency in the technical world to be enamored of ones own “stuff” to the exclusion of other “stuff”. In the sense that if you didn’t invent it, it can’t be good. Sometimes it is called NIH for “not invented here” when it pervades a larger group. Make is one such example. Make is an incredibly powerful tool. Insanely powerful, as it is quite simple to use and work with.

Chris over at the excellent hpcanswers.com site wrote an article for HPCWire entitled “Innovation and Commoditization in HPC”. He makes quite a few points in there, but they have a constant theme. The idea is to do things better than before, drive down your costs, increase the performance, and do this continuously. He sites several examples of this, and postulates others. This is a good article, though I would probably suggest refining some of the points.

It seems IBM won the OSC procurement with a 22TF system. Oddly enough (really oddly enough), our bid was also 22TF in power. I would like to see the final configuration and pricing. I wonder if our bid somehow contributed to the final IBM configuration (this would be disappointing, but not terribly surprising).

Let me say this forcefully. Linux is not Redhat. Redhat packages Linux, as do others. They support it as do others. They contribute to it, as do others. They don’t “define” it. Thats what standards bodies are for. LSB. I keep running into all sorts of problems in getting things properly working with hardware or software that has been built around the Redhat == Linux model. Sadly, this does nothing to convince me to use more Redhat.

Well the conference is almost over, but I can’t stay to the end. Lots of very interesting talks and posters. Met a few people I had spoken to in the past. The demo (e.g. from “We Say So”) a few days ago. I wound up not using the VMware instance. There were simply too many headaches in possibly using it (logistical). It is a shame. I will develop the more fully, so it is ready next time.

I just read this on the Detroit Free Press after seeing it on Drudge. Ok. I have friends and acquaintances who work there. Just like my friends at Ford. Of whom, many will likely be on the receiving end of a job-ax. So what is state to do? A number of things. First: There is a whole heck-of-a-lot-a talent in Michigan. Huge amounts. Maybe, somehow, someway, if we could, I dunno, stop subsidizing failing industries and focus on, I don’t know, microcapitalizing small startup ideas here … Sort of like a MLSC but done right.

Are up here. It is very nice here. Using Google Earth it wasn’t too hard to figure out where it was. Download this KML and load it into Google Earth.