beowulf at RDU airport (Raleigh-Durham, NC, USA)

[Joseph Mack]

I was surprised to see a beowulf at RDU airport on a recent departure.

Rather than a stack of commodity compute nodes, it is a fibreglass statue
of a wolf, about 4' long x 2' high. The wolf's coat has printed 
circuit board patterns on it. Being somewhat mystified and 
having initially assumed I had just a statue of a wolf in front of me,
I looked at the sign to see the title "Beowulf" with the name of the artist 
and sponsor on it. The beowulf is on a platform edged by rectangular 
circuit boards alternately on-end:on-side to give the profile of the 
top of a castle wall.

The beowulf is just beyond the pick-up and drop-off area for terminal A. 
Unfortunately it's in an area where most people are driving and trying 
to avoid colliding with unpredictably moving objects; police, cars 
pulling in and out and people on the crosswalks. Most people won't 
notice the statue. I only saw it as I had time to kill and was going 
for a walk outside the terminal.

The artist is Greg Carter and the sponsor is the Greater Raleigh Chamber
of Commerce. 

A google search for Greg Carter finds 

http://www.cyberpiggy.com/

with a link to more information and a picture of the statue at

http://www.cyberpiggy.com/beowulf/index.html

Except for the circuit board motifs, I would have regarded the 
name  "beowulf" on the statue as a co-incidence. Clicking on the 
various photos on the website brings up text, and reveals that 
the artist knows about beowulf computers.

Phone calls to the Chamber of Commerce have failed to get any
more information. They're on another line even at the early hours
of the morning (busy people) and haven't been able to back 
to me despite their earnest assurances that they would do so 
at the earliest opportunity.

I've cc'ed Greg on this. Hi Greg, thanks for the statue.

Joe
-- 
Joseph Mack PhD, Senior Systems Engineer, Lockheed Martin
contractor to the National Environmental Supercomputer Center, 
mailto:mack.joseph at epa.gov ph# 919-541-0007, RTP, NC, USA