Ben Kudria » Weblog

SC08 is over for this year. The competition ended officially 4PM Friday. We ended up stopping the RAxML job we were running for 40 straight hours; it didn’t look like it was going to finish at all. In the end, we didn’t complete a single dataset.

So, the cruise kinda sucked.  First, our bus broke down, then it started raining, and finally, the boat (The Mason Dixie II) wasn’t that impressive.  The food was good, but we had to endure "entertainment" by a fake Sam Clemens a.k.a Mark Twain.  The jokes were not funny.

On the plus side, we got our cluster up and running, and I was even able to run POVRay yesterday.  So far, we don’t have any problems fitting under the power limit.

We also get a couple of perks: since the conference organizers weren’t able to secure prepaid Visa cards for us, we get an envelope of cash every morning.  There is a party for all the Cluster Challenge participants Wednesday night, featuring a performance by The Blue Man Group.  We get extra points because we have Intel processors.

We also have two very tall Stony Brook Banners, a table for our TV, small stuffed mascots, and other schwag.  Our booth space is looking professional.  The other teams seem to be doing well.  Most have half-height racks instead of full-height, and the IU + Apple team has very nice-looking equipment.  I maintain that we have a good chance of coming out ahead.  Watch this space.