Reno 911: World's largest reboot underway
The sound of 10,000 OSes clapping
You were up all night writing those last lines of code to ensure mega-demonstration success. And this code is a real pain in the ass to deal with because it has to spread across a 72-processor cluster. But, with a bit of perseverance, you nail it, pop open a beer and wait for the glories to follow when show attendees see your genius on the conference floor.
Cut to the actual demo, and you're screwed to all hell when the power goes out.
As the power returned, machines of all shapes and sizes rebooted. There were Windows log-in screens everywhere. Versions of Linux going through their routines. There were also the frantic types pulling off their chassis casings when their systems failed to come back to life.
Er, this was a kick ass protein folding demo
Every year, the machines present at Supercomputing combine to form the equivalent of one of the world's largest machines. Some of the machines here make an HP Superdome look like a tinkertoy.
Breath deep. It'll all be okay
Sanity seemed to hold though as these folks temporarily lost their precious machines, which as an encouraging sign. Now, the electricity collapse can be enjoyed as a point of pride. ®
Update:
As we understand it, the power outage occurred after some renegade plugged in a four-socket Itanium server using the new Montvale chips. (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
