At the Center for High Performace Computing

I just got back from the Center for High Performance Computing. I’m showing a video of my masters work at their opening ceremony on Tuesday, and so I was copying the video I made onto their machines, and making sure that they had the appropriate codecs installed and so on.

I got to walk around inside their server room. It’s huge, and they have these behemoth air conditioning units pumping cool air into the room fast enough that you can feel a continual cool breeze wherever you stand — unless you step behind one of the server stacks, which give off a lot of warm air. The machines and air-conditioning fill the room with a continual hum loud enough that you have to raise your voice to speak over it. If I remember correctly, I was told that four of the server stacks were just for the CPUs. It’s all very impressive when you see it, with blue lights and security cameras and cages and an observation booth and all the added little extras.