This year’s SC conference was a lot of fun.  I’ve been to Texas before, but never to Austin.  Austin is big city, but it doesn’t really feel like one.  Nestled next to the Colorado river, the skyscrapers create an interesting contrast with their surroundings.  Many of the buildings seemed brand new, but the city seems fairly quiet for its size.  This year’s conference was special because it was the 20th anniversary.  In honor of the history of supercomputing, the conference had a musem with artifacts spanning those 20 years including a Cray 1.  The SC’08 staff also gave out commemorative DVDs with a copy of the keynote speach given by Seymore Cray at the first SC.  His speach sumarized the story of how he got his start after college and some of the interesting problems he and his colleagues had to solve.  Even though his speach included a lot of highly technical details, he told the story so well that it was very enjoyable and easy to follow.  SC is one of those places that can blow your mind the first time you’re there.  There’s so much cutting edge technology and so much talent that it can be a bit overwhelming.  Since it was my second time there, it wasn’t quite as overwhelming as the first, but it was still a lot of fun and a great experience.