Day three from Cole

So today is Condor day, and apparently it's going to be an auspicious day. I know this because I stayed up late talking with what started as six other students, and what dwindled eventually down to just two of us. We talked about host countries, and we discussed politics. Commerce, culture, and computers were all discussed. I thoroughly enjoyed the talks, and hoped that I wasn't interrupting others too often. I asked lots of questions, and definitely learned many new things. So "why", you ask, "do I care about this Cole?" And the answer to that is I overslept. See, totally makes sense now, eh? However, Andrew came and checked, and told me to get out of bed, "hurry so you don't miss the bus" - my thoughtful reply was "No, need a shower first". And yet, I still managed to be on time to the bus, with a shower, so I say the day has begun auspiciously.

Now, onto the lectures. David started the morning and introduced us back to Miron Livny again. Miron started with a background on Condor and its relation to HTC and HPC. There was some interesting discussion to questions asked by students, and because I feel the discussion became a little charged, I won't repeat it here. I appreciated both sides of the situation, and think that at the moment it is best for me to learn more about both sides before I can say anything else about it. Suffice to say I believe the act of a programmer looking for premature optimization is a "Bad Thing". No more on this.

So, Alain started a talk on Condor, and we keep getting interrupted. He got through about five slides, then it was time for break. Upon coming back, he asked someone to take a picture of him to prove to his wife that he actually does lecture*, so natch I volunteered. ;-) As a matter of fact, I believe I'll toss one of him on up in addition to the regular style picture I do for each lecturer. I took these pictures right after I wrote that, and as you can see, he's still getting interrupted. Poor Alain ;-(.



Well, on with the lectures...

I have to admit, today's questions are very direct, I think people are coming out of their shells, or, barring that, they're just now getting used to asking questions.

* he said something about being madly in love, etc etc ;-)