A sine qua non of beowulf engineering is paying for it. Few
individuals buy beowulfs ``out of pocket'' (I'm one of the
admittedly rather strange exceptions to this rule) and everybody
else has to find the money for one. This money generally belongs
to somebody else - the government, the university, the company -
and one has to either write a grant proposal or a some sort of
justification for the expenditure of money already in hand. How
can one justify purchasing a beowulf to people who in many cases
haven't the foggiest of ideas about what a supercomputer is or
how they work or what one might want to accomplish with one? In
a really ideal universe, one would simply say ``because without
one I cannot get my work done and we all agree that that work is
worthwhile'' and be done with it, but alas this is often viewed
as an unsatisfying answer by the administrative individuals
charged with ensuring that valuable money is well-spent. The key
step to justifying a beowulf purchase is the gentle education of
those in