Paul T Briggs' : The algorithm

From: "Paul T. Boggs" 
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007 11:22:43 -0500
Subject: "Algorithm" Poem by Paul Boggs

Inspired by Tim Davis' poem, "Matryx Factyrs" which was inspired by Blake's
"The Tyger."

  Algorithm

Algorithm, my delight
Running at the speed of light
What the genius, who the geek
Could forge thy objects ever sleek?

In what language were thee writ
That enabled every bit?
What the templates - how applied
And what the math down deep inside?

Thou wert born with MPI
And that enabled thee to fly
On Beowulf we set thee free
All cycles thou consumed with glee.

When the stars come out at night
And ask a sacrificial rite
Do we just sneer and charge ahead
With no fear and with no dread?

All this wonder; all this speed
And yet I wait here still in need
Alas the run's untimely halt
Said naught but that some seg did fault.

Algorithm, my delight
Running at the speed of light
What the genius, who the geek
Could forge thy objects ever sleek? 

High Performance Computing HPC (@ MSU)

a year and a month ago, we got us an hpc
some of us programmers, we jumped with glee
now, green goes down, or the hardware has crashed
then altix fails and the admins aren't even abashed
no one seems to care,it's just mediocre fare, so, I flee back to my PC...

The lampposts of the world

There are some people you love to talk to. There are some you want to talk to. Then there are some you CAN talk to. These people exist everywhere, they are reasonably intelligent, know how to handle a conversation. They can, at the very least, keep up a dialog which doesn't make you want to tear your hair out one at a time. However, this is not about them. This is about the last class of people, those that I call the lampposts of the world. We will come to the question of "why" later.

You must have seen them. Everyone know at least one of these people. They go around, trying to act smart but exuding a kind of absolute idiocy that cannot be ignored. It is like flatulence in an elevator. You WANT to ignore the stench, but you simply cannot. I have some of these guys around, and often I want to murder them. Their existence itself is like a piece of chewing gum stuck on your finger... you try to shake it off, you try to rub it against the wall, you try to use your other fingers to remove it, you thiiiinnnkkkk it is going to go away, but no, it just stays... well if you are as frustrated as I was some time back with these pall bearers of stupidity, I have a way of looking at it.

I call it the lamppost philosophy. Every time I have a problem with these people, I think of them as lampposts. If you go bang your head into a lamppost, it is your fault, not the lamppost's. So what you need to do is simply walk around it... The exact same philosophy has worked wonders for me !!! Now i just look at them, smile knowingly and walk around the lamppost, careful not to stub my toe :-) ...
....
nn

Barack Obama and George Dubya Bush

Finally, finally, Lord !!! Someone opens his mouth and actual articulate English comes out. I was thinking that it was a requirement for American presidents to learn to mumble. I could just about imagine these president elects going to this school somewhere in the depths of capitol hill, with mumble instructors.
They would probably have lessons like "Mumbling when you know what you are talking about but don't want others to know", "Mumbling when you haven't the least idea what you are saying" and of course the George Bush special "Mumbling in desperation because you were dumb enough to have failed all classes in mumbling school".
Then comes along Obama, honestly like a breath of fresh air. Either this guy is awesomely talented or, he has an amazing speech writer. His website has a list of his speeches that are absolutely amazing (esp. check out his Xavier Univ. address). For a moment there I was about to actively support this guy...

However, he proved himself to be a politician again, when he apologized for saying that the American troops have been "wasted". He says that "that is not at all what I intended to say" ... yeah right, who are you kidding ? You said, it, waited for applause, smiled and moved on.
First of all, I completely agree with Obama. I too think troops are being wasted by a set of administrators who have NO clue what it is to do battle (or about anything else for that matter). However, you, Obama, lack the anatomy to stand up to what you said. Disappointed, that is what I am. Stand up man, stand strong. In this age of fashionable apologies, starting from Mel Gibson all the way to Gray's Anatomy's Isiah Washington, everyone is apologizing for everything, including apologizing for not apologizing enough. Anyways, in this age of fashionable apologies, you would have come across as a true nice guy with some values (as opposed to a certain somebody's "I did vote for war, oh no i didn't, I would have, but I wouldn't since I knew that I was gonna run for president, oh yeah it is all G W Bush's fault"). However, no !!! you had to be the politician, didn't you .. ? :-) ... well, the election is more than 500 days away.. so there is time to both redeem and hang yourself, let us see which way this "fresh air" blows.

and why again ?

Because, there is SO much around me that can be scorned and derided about... An outlet, to get it out of my system, so to speak, I thought would be great. Now since the probability of this blog being read by any human being other than myself (and some people I BEEEGGGG to come here) is about zero, this would be one of the safest places to scorn and deride those that need be scorned and derided. So, at a healthy rate of one per day... here goes...