More Cairns Conference, Thoughts On Week Off

The keynotes for the second day of the conference were by Vassil Alexandrov of the BSC and Mark Ragan. I have suggested that Vassil and John Gustafon share some information on their related interests of extreme scale mathematical methods and the ubox number format. Afterwards attended what was largely the education stream of the conference, including a presentation on collaborative learner-driven education Nia Alexandrova, also the Barcelona Supercomputing Center. My own presentation had quite an unexpected turnout and was apparently was well-received, at least from what I've heard from third parties. I am concerned that I tried to put too much in. That evening was the conference dinner at the Tjapukai Aboriginal Cultural Park which included a great performance and facilities. For my own part, I ended up in an audience participation scene where I helped make fire by rubbing sticks together (or, helped summon a small fire elemental, depending on your point of view) and received a boomerang for my efforts. The final day of the conference included keynotes from Dan Fay from Microsoft on The Fourth Paradigm, an argument I've heard before, I've read the book, and I do not find convincing. The last keynote by Bob Pressey on conservation and computational science indicated a very practical implementation.

Having accumulated several weeks of leave it was appropriately suggested that perhaps I should at least take one week off which begins on Monday. Post-conference it seems a good time to do so, providing an opportunity for both some reflection on the material presented and preparation for upcoming conferences and other academic papers (e.g., eResearch Australasia 2014), along with some reflection on where I'm up to in this current career. After several years in the field of high performance computing and especially with a well-suited tangent of adult and tertiary education in that field, I am getting some subtle hints that I am just on verge of making a significant contribution to this field. I don't want to spend the entire week just doing "basic research" on this particular subject, but I do think that it is going to take up some of the time. I can forsee several long walks around Willsmere and the Yarra Bend parklands as I consolidate my thoughts on these matters and a number of emails to potential collaborators.