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>> CHARLIE: I work with the Advanced Computing Interfaces group, here, in the web and cloud
services. At the root of it, I’m a software developer writing portals and gateways. If
you’re looking at the tools an artist uses, you know, you have paintbrushes, pencils,
and whatnot. Somebody has to make those for the artist. So essentially, that’s what
we’re doing, except we’re doing it for scientists. We’re giving them tools to use.
Essentially, what our group does, is we make interfaces for the underlying systems. The
culture here is really cool at TACC. There’re geniuses all over the place, here, but nobody
considers themselves to be the smartest one in the room. That’s just a little intimidating
sometimes, but it’s something you get used to. Where everyone’s willing to learn, listen
to your opinion, and learn from you. That everyone has some information or insight to
give. So it’s nice to be able to grow with that. So many things make me a geek! My dad
worked at NASA when I was a kid. And actually, I ended up going there so often – each time
I had a day off at school, I’d go with him to NASA. My dad would put me in front of a
computer, it was an old Apple II, and I’d write code for him. And so I essentially ended
up writing a paper, at the time. I was the youngest author of a NASA technical memorandum.
This was back when I was in, like, fourth grade.
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