beowulf at RDU airport (Raleigh-Durham, NC, USA)
Joseph Mack
mack.joseph at epa.gov
Tue Jan 8 04:56:34 PST 2002
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
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