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JimmoWorld A white knuckle ride of excitement and adventure! https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/feed/entries/atom 2009-04-01T01:52:44+00:00 Apache Roller https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/solaris_8_vintage_starts_today Solaris 8 Vintage starts today! jimmo 2009-04-01T01:52:44+00:00 2009-04-01T08:52:44+00:00
With effect from today, April 1st 2009, Solaris 8 has entered phase two of its end of service life transition. This means that while you can continue to get telephone support and access to existing Solaris 8 patches, you will not get access to any new Solaris 8 patches produced from this date onwards unless you have signed up for a Vintage Patch plan.
For more details on this, please visit our Solaris 8 EOSL page.
You may also want to consider an upgrade to Solaris 10, which is something you can get our help with if you need it. There's a raft of new technology in Solaris 10 that may appeal. We've also done a lot of work maturing the patch and live upgrade infrastructure to make maintaining Solaris 10 even easier.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/no_patches_for_opensolaris No "patches" for OpenSolaris jimmo 2008-06-30T02:59:57+00:00 2008-06-30T09:59:57+00:00
 Are you prepared for the change in the way fixes are delivered in OpenSolaris?
 With the Image Packaging System (IPS) in OpenSolaris, there is no longer the concept of a "patch" as it is known in Solaris 10 and earlier. Updates to OpenSolaris will be delivered via refreshes from the distribution repository - there will be no patch delivery vehicle for fixes in OpenSolaris.
 Interim relief for critical situations, for example security issues, will still be delivered via the IDR program but once the formal fix is released, it will be obtained by refreshing your packages via IPS.
 Do you create your own patches for 3rd party software?
 If you "roll your own" patches using the Sun patch architecture to update 3rd party software via the patchadd utility, then I recommend you look at transitioning to the IPS mechanism. Let me know if this applies to you, as I'm curious to know how many folks out there actually do this currently.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/eggs_thrown_at_steve_ballmer Eggs thrown at Steve Ballmer! jimmo 2008-05-21T09:40:25+00:00 2008-05-21T16:40:25+00:00
 I have to confess that I think Steve Ballmer has done a good job...
 ...at surviving an egg attack from a protesting student at the Corvinus University in Budapest.
 The student follows a verbal accusation with a couple of eggs - Steve Ballmer ducks behind the podium and avoids getting tagged! You can see the incident on this video at the BBC website. You can see that he looks pretty angry at first but quickly gathers his composure to laugh it after the student has left the room.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/uk_government_considers_phone_call UK Government Considers Phone call and Email Database jimmo 2008-05-19T22:26:47+00:00 2008-05-20T05:26:47+00:00
 Okay so here's an example of the sort of thing that gets my hackles up ...
 According to this article on the BBC website, UK government ministers are to consider plans for a database holding details of every phone call made and email sent within the nation.
 Aside from the fact that this presents an ethical dilemma between national security and reasonable individual rights to privacy (which is a separate rat hole in and of itself), this also illustrates just how poorly our government representatives understand technology.
 I mean, unless they plan to capture every single octet of data on the wire, anyone wishing to make nefarious phone calls or emails to plot against national security can easily circumvent this. Do they plan to try and get the Skype P2P network updating their database? :) Do they have some clever way of detecting email that isn't sent over the standard ports? Nope - this is another great way to burgle the taxpayer. Dumb!!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/solaris_chosen_over_linux_for Solaris chosen over Linux for better performance jimmo 2008-05-17T03:19:12+00:00 2008-05-17T10:20:37+00:00
 It's nice to hear a success story, no matter how big or small, so I was pleased to see that Real Time Matrix Corp. had a pleasant surprise when the compared the performance Solaris 10 to Fedora.
 Despite being a committed Linux environment, they decided to try out Solaris 10 while they had a T1000 on trial...and ended up feeling quite pleased with the result, claiming that Solaris 10 had "50 times the throughput" of the Fedora configuration.
 For the full story, take a look at the online article.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/solaris_8_end_of_service Solaris 8 End of Service Life & Vintage Support jimmo 2008-05-13T06:14:52+00:00 2008-05-15T07:42:10+00:00
 On April 1st, 2009, Solaris 8 completes its service life. This means that support for Solaris 8 effectively ceases with no further new patches being made available.
 However, I'm pleased to report that we will be offering a Vintage Support Plan for Solaris 8, so that you can continue to get support (including the escalation path up to us in engineering) and patches for your Solaris 8 environment. The good news is that the pricing model for Solaris 8 Vintage Support should be substantially better value compared with the old Solaris 6 program!
 If you want to take advantage of Solaris 10 and the latest hardware while preserving your Solaris 8 runtime environment, why not download our Solaris 8 containers?
 I'll update my blog soon with more news soon. In the meantime, if you're interested in Solaris 8 Vintage Support, feel free to email me directly and I'll follow up with you.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/music_video_montages_on_youtube Music video montages on YouTube jimmo 2008-05-11T01:21:14+00:00 2008-05-11T08:21:14+00:00
 Three of my tracks have accompanying video montages and these are available on my YouTube channel. Unfortunately, I didn't realize that they compress the stereo track to mono when they convert submitted videos to the FLV (Flash Video) format.
 I've since found out that if you transform the video to FLV prior to uploading to YouTube, you can preserve the stereo. I'll have to work on this for the next videos but for now mono will have to do. You can always listen to the stereo versions over on my main music page.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/a_wish_for_the_people A wish for the people of Myanmar (Burma) jimmo 2008-05-09T04:39:10+00:00 2008-05-09T11:39:10+00:00
 As a personal survivor of the 2004 tsunami and being involved in the relief work (thank you Sun for the compassionate leave), I know first hand the sort of devastation a natural disaster like the one in the Irrawaddy delta region of Myanmar can cause.
 It's good practice to keep clear of politics in a Sun-badged blog but I'm deeply saddened that the Burmese military junta is preventing a free flow of urgent life saving aid to the affected people. The horrific loss of life and damage to homes, infrastructure and supply routes together with the despair that the apparent isolation and lack of help must be causing is, quite simply, unconscionable.
 Folks in the region will probably never see these words - but my thoughts are with you all.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/opensolaris_provokes OpenSolaris provokes! jimmo 2008-05-08T07:43:25+00:00 2008-05-08T14:43:25+00:00
 OpenSolaris certainly seems to have stirred up a great deal of both interest and controversy in equal measure! There's been a lot of reasoned debate and a very encouraging level of interest and optimism too! Naturally there has been a whole load of the usual foaming at the mouth rhetoric but hey, so what? Religious "OS vs. OS" flamewars are nothing new...and by the looks of it, these wars are as intellectually impoverished as ever.
 Personally I think it's all rather reassuring. If OpenSolaris was of little consequence or, as was asserted by a laughable bit of FUD, doomed to die, then we wouldn't be seeing such emotionally charged battle lines being drawn. Clearly we're doing something right to provoke such a defensive response!
 That said, I don't assert that there aren't valid questions and concerns being expressed or that rational discussions aren't taking place. To be honest, I guess this is less about advocating OpenSolaris and more about my personal dismay at the flamewar phenomenon in general. It's just that the OpenSolaris versus Linux issue seems to be the "flamewar du jour" and it reminded me of my distaste for all the online pontification that goes on.
 Curiously, I learnt recently that a possible explanation for this psychology is that people are far more unlikely to change their stance in group settings (whether that's a group of people in a meeting or in a public forum) due to a visceral need to "save face" - the fallacy being that you lose face by being persuaded to adjust your views. Frankly, I tend to have much more respect for people who don't fall for this delusion and retain their rationality. Anyway I digress...
 This is still the start of the journey for OpenSolaris. We (Sun and the community) have a lot more work to do. It's certainly too soon to be wishfully doomsaying with any credibility. Interestingly, I'm already hearing of inquiries coming in about the OpenSolaris production support offering. It will be interesting to see how many folks sign up for this.
 The production support includes 24x7 coverage with a 1 hour response commitment to top priority calls. Note also that if necessary, support calls under this plan can be escalated up to our team in engineering...just as they can under the regular support plans.
 Okay, so you don't get the onsite hardware rapid response support like you would with a regular enterprise service plan - this is a software only. But for the price, this is a really cool offering!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/insist_on_rational_troubleshooting Insist on rational troubleshooting! jimmo 2008-05-06T08:15:55+00:00 2008-05-06T15:15:55+00:00
 Sometimes, things break...it happens. This can be annoying but if you can log a support call and get the problem diagnosed and resolved in a timely manner, that can be such a positive experience that it actually more than offsets the inconvenience of the original problem. A customer can feel confident that they're in good hands and that their support contract was a worthwhile investment.
 If the reported problem is in any way complex, then the only way to get this done effectively is with a rational troubleshooting process. Taking intuitive guesses at what the problem may be and/or making repeated requests for data in the hope of "getting lucky" are guaranteed, sure-fire ways to drive a customer up the wall with frustration.
 What follows is a spiral of chaos - the customer starts beating up on the service and account teams. They, in turn, can panic and exacerbate the problem with even more earnest but futile wild stabs in the dark. The customer soon gets the sense that nobody has any idea what's going on. Conference calls ensue, fists bang on tables and the crazy scrabble for progress on the issue continues. Sigh!
It can all be easily avoided through rational troubleshooting!
 The Sun Global Resolution (SGR) process is a rational troubleshooting program derived from Kepner-Tregoe. We use these techniques for gathering, organizing and analyzing problem-specific data. We then base our diagnostic and remedial action plans on this analysis.
 The advantages of the process are compelling. Not only do we not make the problem worse by guessing, we quickly distill the data gathering into specific and relevant areas. By organizing related data together and analyzing the results, we can typically identify what is odd, unusual or distinctive about the problem scenario far quicker than relying on intuition alone.
 Additionally, the customer can see from our action plans what we're doing, why we're doing it and where we're going. This inspires a whole lot more confidence and keeps everyone in sync.
 So why am I blogging about all this? Well, this is a topic dear to my heart! When a problem cannot be diagnosed or resolved by the customer support organization, then it can be escalated to our engineering team. (Note that our cousins in Services do an excellent job - only a tiny percentage of issues ever get escalated to us). Cases where the troubleshooting is uncontrolled are very rare. However, in almost every one of those rare cases that I have been involved with, our rational troubleshooting process has not been applied!.
 If you ever feel like a problem is not making good diagnostic progress, go ahead and demand that the SGR process is applied to your issue...and you can quote me on that!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/a_new_take_on_the A new take on the Dr. Who theme tune jimmo 2008-05-03T22:00:51+00:00 2008-05-13T13:31:26+00:00
 Not long ago, I was playing around with some music and I ended up making a "techno" version of the theme from the television classic, Doctor Who. Unless you're a Brit or a SciFi fan, you may not be sure what Doctor Who is, in which case I'll briefly explain that it was a BBC TV science fiction show that has run, on and off, for decades.
 If you want to listen to my re-theming of this iconic tune in an electro/techno manner, you can check it out at The Doctor Who Remixes site or over on my music page.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/understanding_the_sun_strategy Understanding the Sun Strategy jimmo 2008-05-03T02:45:21+00:00 2008-05-03T09:45:21+00:00
 A sound business strategy is essential for revenue growth and the long term success of the company. I personally believe that helping people to understand Sun's business strategy is equally as vital. We fear what we don't understand and so its essential that we effectively communicate Sun strategy to retain the confidence of our customers, shareholders and even our employees.
 A couple of weeks ago, I was on a training course and we had Jonathan Schwartz visit us for an hour (very nice of him to spare the time). At that session, he said:
 "One of the most frequently asked questions is 'how do we make money from open source sofware?'"
 He then went to a flipchart and drew a diagram like the one on the right...
 Software represents the Sun software product suite.
 Systems represents the Sun system hardware range (servers, storage & network)
 Services represents the support and professional services offerings
 Microelectronics represents our silicon business (microprocessors, etc.)
 Notice the overlapping regions - these are the richer business areas where we provide solutions that integrate two or more of these four fundamental product spaces. The sweet spot being right in the middle! So how does this relate to open source software and translate into growth?
 Well, software is the most common "adoption vector". Entrepreneurs typically want to prototype their new business ideas as cheaply as possible, so they turn to the rich and fertile pastures of open source software as a source of free software building blocks for their nascent business. If the prototype proves itself and a new startup is born, they're unlikely to throw away those building blocks - no, it is far more likely that the new startup will continue to evolve and grow from those early open source adoptions.
 By providing an attractive, feature-rich and technologically advanced open source software product range, we significantly increase our chances of being the "adoption vector" for these new businesses...and when they bloom, we can help them grow with our systems, services or maybe even microelectronics thanks to the relationship we established with them in their early days. This partnering relationship is exactly what we want to foster - for the mutual benefit of our customers and Sun.
 The crucial point is that this is not a short term strategy. While we are doing everything we can to accelerate the process, it will take some time to get the momentum we want. It's inevitable that the high end proprietary software market will eventually dry up because sooner or later, open source alternatives will dominate.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/sun_is_leaner_greener_cleaner Sun is Leaner, Greener & Cleaner jimmo 2008-05-02T11:47:11+00:00 2008-05-03T07:50:39+00:00
 Although it doesn't grab many headlines, Sun's "Eco Innovation" initiative is working hard to provide environmentally friendly solutions by reducing power usage and taking advantage of recyclable packaging materials.
 There are a number of different facets to our ecological strategy. You can minimize space, power and cooling requirements with our modular blade servers or take advantage of the power efficient CoolThreads product range.
 Alternatively, reduce the power footprint of your desktops with a Sun Ray solution (about 4 watts for a Sun Ray 2 versus 80+ watts for a typical desktop PC). Verizon Wireless managed to reduce their total energy usage at their facilities by 30% by using Sun Ray thin clients - and they're not alone. That's an attractive cost saving, as well as a sound ecological move!
 I remember visiting a customer site where they had an immense machine room full of iron, most of it many years old - sucking down the amps like I suck down a mojito! Not only that, but their increasing processing needs meant that they were considering knocking down the wall and expanding their datacentre into the adjoining room! Naturally, they were keen to hear more about how they can take advantage of the high end enterprise servers or our virtualization offerings to consolidate their legacy machines and increase data processing throughput.
 With the steady rise of power costs and an increasing awareness for environmental impact, I can't think of a better time to see how Sun can help your business both save money and boast a higher standard of environmental care!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/why_video_games_could_be Why video games could be damaging your children jimmo 2007-10-29T06:16:22+00:00 2008-05-02T16:58:51+00:00
 Much of the controversy around the way video games affect our children has been around the violent nature of the games, in much the same way as violence in film has been accused of causing "copy-cat" behaviour amongst the impressionable young.
 However, there is circumstantial evidence of a far more insidious effect, especially among younger children due to the use of video games as a form of "surrogate" for imaginative play.
 It is widely accepted that mental faculties can atrophy with disuse, in much the same way as a lack of physical exercise can cause the body to weaken. One needs to exercise the brain to keep it sharp and agile.
 The potential harm from video games comes less from the content of the game and more from the fact that it does the imaginative play on behalf of the child. The older generation may remember how we used to play with even the most simplest of toys, constructing rich mental landscapes of play and imaginary interaction.
 Now, however, all you need to do is switch on a box and that rich landscape is graphically portrayed for you on screen. The child is drawn in to this artificial world without any need to use intrinsic mental imagination. I first observed this in my own daughter, who could play computer games for hours on end if we, her parents, did not intervene. I also noticed that my other daughter would happily play for hours with "traditional" toys, chattering away to herself in her imaginary world while her older sister seemed to have lost all interest in any real-world playthings.
 The concern here is that when one loses the ability to imagine for yourself, you also start to lose the ability to intrinsically entertain oneself...turning instead to artificially induced entertainment in the virtual world of the video game. What happens when the child grows older and ultimately becomes bored of the video game? What do they do then?
 This could be one of many reasons why antisocial behaviour in teens (and even pre-teens) is on the increase. It's not that we had a more entertaining environment when we were that age. Perhaps the inability to entertain oneself leads to a form of boredom that forces the child to seek out extrinsic stimulation from the surrounding environment, which in turn can lead to exactly the sort of antisocial behaviour we're now seeing?
 Of course, it would be a gross over-simplification to lay all of societies ills at the feet of video games but I do think there is definitely a relevant factor here. I believe the lack of imaginative play results in the atrophying of the imagination, which in turn leads to a dependence on external stimulus and that can, in some cases, lead to addiction (and video game addiction is a very real phenomenon).
 Now, I'm not calling for anything so extreme as a ban on video games or any such draconian measures. I simply think that rationing the amount of time our children spend playing games may be more than just sensible, it may actually be better for their mental health! https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/my_own_music_is_now My own music is now online! jimmo 2007-08-07T03:49:32+00:00 2008-05-02T17:26:44+00:00
 Well, it's taken a while but I've finally launched my new music site! Friends and family tend to be very lenient with their criticism but they've often told me that I should really do more to promote my own music (after all, that is my first love. I enjoy my job but I love composing!)
 Check it out at www.jimmo.org.
 There are demonstrations and samples available under "free music", although these are mostly classical in nature. You can listen to samples from the album I'm currently working on too!
 The music files are hosted in the UK, so you may need a little patience to download or stream the mp3 files from other parts of the globe (depending on the quality of your international internet feed).
 For those with Simon Cowell tendencies, you have the option to leave criticism on the forum :)
  (Note to foreign readers: Simon Cowell is a music industry personality infamous for his very blunt but usually correct critique)  https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/things_that_go_bang_in Things that go bang in Beijing jimmo 2007-05-08T21:14:29+00:00 2008-05-08T17:18:27+00:00
 It's been incredibly busy these days and the amount of work going on has meant that I've been attending a lot of late night calls while on my travels.
 Currently, I'm in Beijing once again. This is a noisy and busy city. Personally, I enjoy this metropolitan melting-pot of experiences. It's amazing! As I sit by the window, I can hear a constant cacophony of assorted sounds floating in on the dusty, warm air.
 Someone is angle-grinding and metalworking, various people are calling to each other. A few people seem to be competing for the "who can lean on their car horn the longest" trophy, one of whom has decided to go for an interesting rhythm - perhaps to get points for artistic interpretation? You never feel alone in Beijing, even when you're alone!
 Every single day, at all sorts of random times, I hear something explode. I'm assuming it's some kind of firecracker but, good grief, they're loud! In fact, on some days, you can hear cracks, bangs and booms reverberating around the city - some in the distance, some close by.
 Outside the apartment, there is a narrow road that is literally filled with hairdressing salons, little fruit and vegetable shops and the occasional small family run restaurant. I've never seen so many hairdressers and barbers in one street before - and they all seem to be busy with customers. This explains all those young girls with frizzy 1980's hairstyles strutting around.
 On an adjacent road, there are some tiny little brick built structures, basically consisting of a room with a window at the front and a curtain. If the curtains aren't closed, you can sometimes see a heavily made up young lady, often provocatively dressed, perched on wooden stool staring out at the world with dull, soul-less eyes. Fancy a little "extra service" after your hair cut? No problem!
 We have a little supermarket nearby, where the checkout tills use barcode readers that frequently fail to read the barcode and the operator would rather not sell you the product, as that means having to type that long string of numbers in. Even at the big Carrefour, I was told that I couldn't use my international credit card, despite standing right underneath a huge cardboard sign proclaiming how international cards were welcomed! Luckily, most food items are incredibly good value here in China - especially for a visiting lao wai (foreigner) so it's no problem to produce the required cash.
 Don't get me wrong, this place is fantastic and it's a veritable roller-coaster of experiences. The food can vary from the truly delicious to the blood-curdlingly horrific. The smells on one street can make you salivate with hunger, but turn the corner and you've got a lungful of the unspeakable. Delicious fresh fruit is sold from cute little wooden stalls and most of the time you don't get to see the seller emptying their nose with their fingers prior to loading your strawberries into a little plastic bag by that same hand.
 The countryside can be equally rewarding. Not long ago I went pony trekking up at 12000 feet in Sichuan. Wonderful, aside from some saddle-sores that I'll not dwell on now. Getting there by bus was an experience. It seems that virtually all men smoke in rural areas, and they don't stop when they're on a bus, except to cough up some phlegm onto the floor between the seats.
 It seems that smoking on a bus isn't considered antisocial out in the boonies. However, opening a window twill result in you getting shouted at because, apparently, it's very selfish to let in that cold, fresh air while trying to breathe.
 Laid back, open minded travellers will love China. Uptight, neurotic westerners will probably struggle. Frankly, I think it's a great place. https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/daylight_saving_time_isn_t Daylight saving time isn't worth the trouble jimmo 2007-03-25T05:29:11+00:00 2007-03-25T13:29:11+00:00
 Changing our clocks for daylight saving time allegedly saves energy but I haven't seen any data that supports that assertion.
 I was in Menlo Park during the recent DST change in the US. Prior to the change, I would wake up to a warm morning but after the change, it was barely dawn and the night chill was still in the air...which meant I, for one, used more energy; lights because it was dark and heating because it was cold.
 The energy saving claim just doesn't scan with me and it seems that I'm not the only one who finds this explanation dubious. Kellogg and Wolff of the University of California Energy Institute wrote this paper that digs into these claims and concludes that they're inaccurate.
 Now, I don't have anything against DST in terms of the choice of hour, I just wish we'd stop tweaking the clocks back and forth - not to mentioning causing chaos by changing when we tweak them for, apparently, no genuine benefit. I end up having to re-adjust my mental clock in relation to all my colleagues and friends in different locations around the world, which drives me nuts.
 Pick a time and stick to it. Please! https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/are_you_suffering_from_patch Are you suffering from patch pain? jimmo 2007-03-20T23:30:39+00:00 2007-03-21T10:55:02+00:00
 Patching is a hot issue for me right now. More and more of our customers are struggling to install ever larger and more complex patches, especially in a production environment. In this blog entry, I'll guide you through what's happened, why it's happened, what Sun is doing about it and how you can make your own life easier too!
 Prior to Solaris 10, when a version of Solaris was released, the scale of change allowed in that release was very constrained. Usually the only changes we'd make to the code were for bug fixes and, very occasionally, support for a new platform. As a result, the Solaris patches released by Sun contained predominantly corrective code.
 That all changed for Solaris 10.
 Now we have significant features being integrated into Solaris, primarily intended for Solaris 10 updates...except, of course, many of these features also get delivered through the corresponding patches because they're built from the same Solaris 10 source code.
 Unfortunately, there have been two serious ramifications from this approach...

Some of the features touch a significant proportion of the code, creating a big web of dependencies that force all those dependencies into the same patch. That's why the kernel patch is so big!

Some of the features introduce interface and/or behavioural changes that don't play nicely with the running system performing the 'patchadd', this makes it inordinately difficult for us to build a stable, installable KU. It's also the main reason for the 79 special notes at the end of the kernel patch README :(

 So what are we doing about this?
 Firstly, we're "rejuvenating" the kernel update which splits out all the dependencies so that, with the last KU installed, subsequent patches can be smaller once again.
 Secondly, we're reviewing the integration review processes to ensure that appropriate verification is in place to ensure that features are tested in the "patch install" context prior to integration.
 Thirdly, we're identifying enhancements and bug fixes to the patch and packaging utilities that will help them cope better with features being delivered in patches.
 There's also something else that you can do for yourself - configure your production systems for Live Upgrade.
 To be honest, Sun has not done a good job at encouraging the adoption of live upgrade and that's a shame. Anyone running in a production environment should be taking a very long, hard look at live upgrade because it enables you to apply patches or upgrade your Solaris release while still in production.
 Because live upgrade applies the changes to an "alternate boot environment" (effectively an offline clone of your currently booted Solaris disk image), you don't need to be in single user mode to apply the KU - in fact, you can install a whole cluster of patches with your server still running in full production mode...just reboot into the updated alternate boot environment and you're away!
 Furthermore, should you encounter any problems, you can reboot back to your original boot environment straight away - no lengthy downtime while you repair the damage. A huge amount of the pain associated with installing patches and managing your maintenance windows goes away when you use Live Upgrade.
 I strongly urge everyone to reconfigure to enable Live Upgrade. You'll be glad you did!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/i_m_still_alive I'm still alive jimmo 2007-01-23T02:19:40+00:00 2007-01-23T10:19:40+00:00
 Prodded by a reference from Catwoman I am forced back into the light to admit that I'm still alive.
 I struggle with blogs because I find it hard to think about something interesting and worthwhile to blog about - it's not that my life's dull, it's just that the interesting stuff isn't really suitable for poking into my employer's online blogroll.
 Seriously, who really cares what I think anyway? :)
 Anyway, in response to the tag from Catwoman, I'll have to add an entry with the 5 things you didn't know about me.
 You know one thing, though...blogging does not float my boat.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/you_ll_be_glad_you You'll be glad you chose Sun when the chips are down! :) jimmo 2004-08-27T06:35:47+00:00 2008-05-02T17:18:00+00:00
 While there are many technological reasons why you might choose a Sun solution when you make a purchase decision, there is another vital aspect you should also consider. That would be our excellent Support Services and Revenue Product Engineering organisations.

 Let's face it, things don't always go to plan. Sometimes things go wrong, maybe even horribly wrong; software defects, hardware failures, configuration issues, performance problems and so on.

 If and when you have your "Apollo 13" moment, it's our team you want on the ground working the issues and bringing you home safe.

 Our Revenue Product Engineering (RPE) team provides a true 24x7 software defect resolution service to ensure that your enterprise keeps on flying. The RPE team consists of 130+ engineers of the highest calibre whose raison d'etre is to identify and resolve the root cause of the gnarliest software defects you could encounter. No matter how complicated or difficult to diagnose the issue may be, we are here to ensure that you get exactly the right solution; on time - every time.

 We work in partnership with our hardware and software services divisions, applying rational troubleshooting techniques derived from Kepner and Tregoe, to maximise your uptime. The phrase "I don't know" is not in our lexicon - we will work tirelessly to ensure that any product defect you might encounter is resolved.

 How can I be so confident? Because I've done it. I've been an engineer in the services and RPE teams. I've flown to datacentres around the world to get problems solved! I've admired the diligence and professionalism of my colleagues as we collaborate together to ensure customer issues get a rapid and meaningful response.

 Now I'm part of the RPE management team, which includes acting as a duty manager for out of hours calls. I've seen first hand how our entire support infrastructure rallies together to get to root cause - fast! I've been on conference calls with customers where we work the issue, communicate action plans and engage with partners.

 So, if you should have that "Apollo 13" moment, you'll be glad you chose Sun.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/children_plague_carrying_rats Children: plague carrying rats! jimmo 2004-08-24T07:31:50+00:00 2004-08-24T14:31:50+00:00
 I'm delighted with the standard of education my daughter receives from her nursery school. What I'm less enamoured with is the way she brings home virulent infections from the other children. After a few days of nursing and cleaning up after my children, I have spent the past couple of days shouting "Ralph!" into my porcelain bathroom furniture.

 Yup, children are the modern day analogue of the plague carrying rats of the 1300's. Fortunately, they're not carrying anything as bad as the Black Death or Ebola but still, I feel absolutely rotten. Yes, I know I'll live but frankly it's only the hope of dying that is keeping me alive!

 Yesterday I was supposed to be going to Prague to help interview a few candidates. Sadly, the rebellion taking place in my duodenal tract was having none of it. I briefly toyed with the idea of taking a chance and going anyway, as most of these bugs ease off after a good night's sleep. Luckily I didn't, because my colleague phoned me to let me know that Heathrow Airport was heaving with people as British Airways didn't have enough staff to handle the passenger load. They were delayed a few hours as a result and I am most glad that I didn't spend those few hours damp-kneed before the stainless steel altar of an airport lavatory.

Ah yes, I do wish I'd made it to Prague. Lovely city! I remember seeing a web page (inside Sun's internal network) on hints and tips for visitors to Prague. It was clearly written by one of our American cousins, judging by their comments about which beers to drink. Hey boys! The dark beers are the best! I guess it's an aquired taste for those more accustomed to the vaguely-beerish frozen swill that predominates the US beer industry. Yes, I know you have micro-breweries which I admit can turn out a palatable brew, although usually way too fizzy. The Tied House in Mountain View, CA, did a rather nice cinnamon-flavoured winter beer which I've sadly not seen there since.

Now, as for the wine - that's a different story...I'm particularly fond of fine wines, so I'll post a blog entry on that later. For now, I'd better attend to the urgent signals coming from my lower digestive system.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/rant_why_i_hate_wiki Rant: Why I Hate Wiki/Twiki/SnipSnap/etc.. jimmo 2004-08-19T03:50:45+00:00 2004-08-19T10:51:47+00:00

They are overused, often for no better reason than "because we can". As a side effect, wiki nazis are starting to crawl out of the woodwork and harangue people who don't use wiki for their own pages.

I'm used to hand-authoring html and css. I hate the lack of fine control over my layout and structure.

Ugly to look at, often horrible to navigate. I've seen some truly incomprehensible sites with hideous layouts where it's hard to find the information you're looking for, if it even exists at all (not that this is unique to wiki-like resources)

Yet another grungy, nasty syntax to learn. Yeah I could learn it but I'm bored and fed up with learning new ways to do things slower and uglier than before.

Come on, be honest. How many wiki pages have you seen where little or no collaboration actually takes place anyway? Yeah. Loads.

Contradiction in terms though it may be, snipsnap both sucks and blows.

 I'm sure there are good uses of wiki and friends out there. Do you know a wiki site on the web that is good looking, well structured, easy to navigate and genuinely useful as a collaborative tool? Add a comment and gimme the URL.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/free_kiss_for_every_sun Don't neglect your spouses! jimmo 2004-08-09T13:30:10+00:00 2004-08-09T20:39:44+00:00
Information Technology can be a lonely occupation, as it tends to attract the geekier of us. Worse still, due to the historic bias within societies for the conditioning of gender roles, the female population within IT is smaller than it should be. Too many of us fritter away our free time with our square-headed girlfriends instead of more normal human activities like eating, exercising and - heaven forbid - actually finding out what someone elses skin feels like.

As I right this, my beloved wife has stomped off upstairs while I finish my email (which could have waited) and write this blog entry (which, let's face it, you're probably realising that it wasn't a smart move to read).

Anyway, learn from my mistake! Don't neglect your spouses. (For some reason, I feel the plural of "spouse" should be "spice"). I'm going to go and spend time with mine now - hopefully, she'll still be pleased to see me.

Good night!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/the_fate_of_hot_patching The fate of "hot patching" (DUKS) and a new way of doing it jimmo 2004-08-05T07:09:53+00:00 2004-08-05T14:09:53+00:00
Way back when Solaris 8 was being developed, I came up with a way to dynamically revector the flow of execution in a running kernel. This idea came about because a large number of the bug fixes we were producing for customers were fairly simple...not all of them but quite a few. Customers were being forced to install new kernel binaries and reboot to verify our fixes, which introduced additional delay into the time it takes us to produce a patch.

By being able to load a replacement bit of code (via the loadable module mechanism) and revectoring the execution flow, we could allow our customers to try out the fix without having to wait for their next scheduled downtime. Sadly, it was never possible to do this for formal patches because the dependencies in the patches were invariably too extensive. That's ok, because it was only really intended to get a preliminary bug fix or diagnostic code change into a live kernel quickly.

One of the biggest problems with implementing something like this is that the architectural design of the operating system software needs to have this facility designed in. There are a number of ways to try and "retrofit" the capability but none of them really work very well.

Anyway, that got me thinking about how we could implement such a facility from scratch - should we ever get the chance. Well, last December I was implementing a VM layer on an toy x86 operating system I was writing at home and it occurred to me that we could use a similar method to the way address translation is performed with page tables and apply it to this problem. In fact, it wouldn't take a huge leap of technology to hardware accelerate the translation process from 32-bit code to function (method) address because the ability to walk software maintained tables is already in the hardware. Woohoo! A high performance dynamically updateable software architecture!

I've had a paper on this published via the Research Disclosure Database so rather than go into detail here, if you're interested just read the paper.
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/use_the_source_luke_it Use the Source, Luke...(it's open) jimmo 2004-08-05T04:56:41+00:00 2004-08-05T11:56:41+00:00
Psst! Have you heard that the Solaris source code will be opened to the community? Yes, it's true and this was a topic of discussion at a recent OSCON.

There's enormous momentum within Sun to open up the Solaris source code and embrace the open source community. I'm a member of the OpenSolaris council (also known by it's internal codename "tonic") and I can tell you,the timescales are aggressive!

One of our blog readers, Yusuf Goolamabbas, emailed me with a great idea...how about having publically accessible build machines for OpenSolaris? We think this exactly what we need to do. I forwarded his proposal to the OpenSource council and so far, it's been well received. Hopefully, we will have Solaris 10 servers with secure "developer zones" where you can login, take a child of the source and start strutting your funky stuff! Watch this space - and don't forget to join the OpenSolaris developer community when it's launched. I believe a web site for this is in the pipeline already.

Of course, there may be some skeptics out there. How will we make money by doing this? Why will the community want to participate? Well, the answer is simply that the passion within the engineering community at Sun for both Solaris and the open source community is enormous, a fact that has been largely opaque to the outside world so far. Furthermore, the technology we've got in Solaris now is just too good not to share!

We will open our source. Will you open your mind?
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/viruses_galore Viruses galore! jimmo 2004-07-27T08:45:04+00:00 2004-07-27T15:45:04+00:00
 It's been a while since I updated this blog...yeah, well I've been busy.

 Our email network has got loads of Window's viruses (virii?) flying about; mostly from infected laptops I believe. Of course, Sun/Solaris machines are immune but it's irritating to get a mailbox full of this stuff.

 Microsoft are a cunning bunch of marketeers. They make a big song and dance about having a large team of engineers focused on security. Naturally, the message is spun to make it sound reassuring about how serious they take security. Well, maybe so. Of course, the main reason why they have such a huge security team (and we have such a small one) is because they're code is so atrociously insecure!

 It's more than just security holes in the code; the architecture of their operating environment is vulnerable to virus infection. Mail readers like "outhouse express" that execute attachments for you (well, they know better than you what you want to do - right?) are a good example. Promoting an environment that makes ease-of-use for the user a priority is fine but there needs to be a secure architecture behind it. More and more of the security enhancements from Trusted Solaris are making their way into our "vanilla" Solaris operating system. Plus we have zones (a facility similar in concept to "BSD jails") in Solaris 10...it rocks!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/shaking_off_the_jet_lag Shaking off the jet-lag! jimmo 2004-07-02T02:19:29+00:00 2004-07-07T08:17:26+00:00
 I think I've just about recovered from my June travels! First I went to Prague with our director, Diann Olden, to see about maybe setting up a new team there. With the loss of the Moscow heads at MCST, we had some headcount to make use of and Prague piqued our interest. We also considered St. Petersburg, which is also more cost effective compared to western Europe, however there are some minor disadvantages; you need a visa to go there, it's three hours time difference as opposed to just one in Prague (and we already overlap with India) and I'm not yet sure about the state of the infrastructure. Prague is almost as inexpensive but is very well developed, easy to get to with no visa requirements with a good pool of resources available. Prague here we come!

 After that, I had a few days at home before going over to California for our FY05 management planning meeting. It seems we've done rather well on the goals we set ourselves in our business plan from last year! How refreshing! :)

 Finally, I had a week off in Hong Kong and Macau. Lovely! I had some air miles that were going to expire so I thought it best if I use them and I had just enough for an economy round-trip ticket to Hong Kong. Pretty girls, good food and stinking hot weather. Paradise!

 Now, however, it's back to my blue and purple cage at Sun and I have to start wrestling with open source support strategies again. Joy!
 https://blogs.oracle.com/jimmo/entry/div_bgcolor_ccccfc_a_new A new financial year begins... jimmo 2004-07-01T03:46:07+00:00 2008-05-02T17:17:07+00:00
 Okay so it's FY05 and this is going to be an important year for Sun. While we face technological challenges and financial cost saving measures, I think the biggest challenge that Sun faces is mainly one of market confidence. Actually, we've got some fine technology and Solaris 10 has got some fantastic new features in it. Financially, our accounts are actually fairly healthy and despite the clamouring for cuts in headcount and investment, we're not in any danger of going bust any time soon.

 No, the big issue is that we've got to regain the confidence of the market. Many of our major customers are holding back, waiting for us to "make money" and of course, that's the vicious circle; everyone's waiting for someone else to place those big orders.

 Of course, being a publically listed company has its drawbacks because you're then vulnerable to all the speculations of the analysts. Richard Branson (founder of the Virgin group) said the one thing he'd definitely do differently if he had his time over again would be to not float on the stock market. Actually, Timex (the timepiece company) is still a privately owned corporation - no public stock. No matter how well researched or how specious the comments of an analyst, it has a direct impact on our stock price and market presence. We're in the world of the self-fulfilling prophecy where ignorant pessimism can really hurt a company!

 Mind you, we don't exactly do ourselves any favours, especially from a marketing perspective. In the ten years I've been at Sun, I've seen some truly surreal approaches to marketing. "Network the Dog" for example, which was just plain dumb. Or the more recent "take it to the nth" which nobody understood. Of course, then there's the complete lack of marketing at all in some places. Aside from a billboard outside London's Heathrow airport, you'll be hard pressed to find any Sun marketing in the UK except maybe in the odd computing rag.

 I still think it wouldn't hurt to increase our visibility in EMEA; more tv advertising and so forth. IBM and Microsoft both do it and no, they're not just advertising for the home user! All those decision makers - the CIO's, IT directors, finance directors - what do they do when they come home? Yup, kiss their partner and kids as applicable, grab dinner and switch on the tv! Why should only IBM and Microsoft get their eyeballs, hmm?
 Time To Market Pressure
 Actually, while I'm having a light rant, I'm going to have a pop at this concept of "time to market pressure". You know, this is when a company rushes to get a new product out the door to capitalize on a market opportunity. Well, I think we should show a little more backbone when it comes to standing up to this "pressure". Why not take a little more time to really polish up the quality of a product? Well, here are some of the arguments I've heard in favour of rushing to market...
 The market will move on without us
 Oh yeah? What do you think the market was doing for the 18 months or so that we took to develop the product so far? Existing Sun customers are unlikely to throw out their whole infrastructure because we want to take a couple more quarters to get the product into a truly magnificent state. Besides, we should be making the market so hungry for our new features that they'll be waiting, slavering with anticipation, to get their hands on it (besides, we have early access and beta programs, right?) If you ship a poor quality product, you're certainly going to encourage the market to move on without us.
 We want to lead, not follow. Make the headlines!
 A laudable intent but how much did it cost us, both financially and in terms of negative press, when we then had to fix and/or replace huge quantities of hardware or software because we kicked it out the door too soon?

 It's crazy. We've have got some fantastic technology - hardware and software - that can really kick some competitive backside! Don't compromise on quality, for crying out loud! Especially as we absolutely, positively must win back the confidence of our market. If it takes a couple of months more to get it right, then so be it!

 So what's it to be? "Late and Great!" or "Quick and Sick!"

You decide.


text:
Social Wine Discovery
Average rating: 3.9 /5
Added by andre on May 26, 2008
+ new year or type / Share Wine
airdiogo has reviewed the Krohn Porto 20 Year Old Porto /100
Aroma suave. Café, caramelo. Notas químicas ligeiras. Na boca envolvente e espesso. Café e caramelo a dominar. Final longo e muito agradável.
ryanopaz has reviewed the Krohn Porto 20 Year Old Porto /5
Beautiful reddish brown color with a nose that is full of wood and polish. Hazelnuts, varnish, and caramely sawdust. Intense and big. In the mouth the wine is fully sweet with a full body and lots of nutty richness. Alcohol is a factor, and warms as it goes down, but the intense rich caramel and nut flavors balance it will with a good acid streak down the middle. Think, toffee with a sweet cherry core, that is hidden behind a brittle candy shell. Really a rich and delicious treat.
ryanopaz marked Krohn Porto 20 Year Old Porto as tasted
gabriellaopaz marked Krohn Porto 20 Year Old Porto as tasted
gabriellaopaz has reviewed the Krohn Porto 20 Year Old Porto /5
In color, this port still shows a nice dark caramel core, slowly fading to a light tan rim. Clear, while still retaining a nice brilliant hue, it shows pleasant aromas of hazelnut, caramel, burnt sugar with a spritz of orange zest right at the end. Very creamy, subtle and elegant. In the mouth, this wine comes in like a slow and unctuous wave that all at once, gives off a large splash of acidity right near the very back of the palate before it shows a hint of tannin on the finish. Nice notes of hazelnut, vanilla, toffee and cream, and albeit a pleasant port wine, it's relatively one dimensional. 3 hours later - the wine has opened nicely and showed a more integrated palate. I'm going to change my score from a 3.5/5 to a 4/5
Krohn Port Wines Recommended
26 May 08
|Useful (1)
Adegga.com A Social wine site that is headed in the right direction Recommended
19 Jun 08
|Useful (0)
Decanter World Wine Awards 2010
11 Jun 10
|Useful (0)
|Krohn Porto Late Bottled Vintage 2003fortified
|Krohn Colheita 1978fortified
|Krohn Colheita 1965fortified
|Krohn Porto Late Bottled Vintage 2004fortified
|Krohn 10 Year Old Portofortified
|Nov 9, 2011
|Wiese & Krohn na GNcellar
|Jun 1, 2011
|Bocca Wine List

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Should schools mix rich and poor kids for the greater good? (part 2)
True/Slant writer Megan Cottrell and I share a deep interest in issues of race, class, and urban life, so the two of us decided to bring our perspectives together on the issue of income diversity and school segregation. You can read a portion of our conversation each day this week. Megan's initial message to me was posted on Monday as Part 1. Following is my response:
As a former Chicago Public Schools teacher, current educational researcher, and (I hope) future parent, I have mixed views on socioeconomic diversity policies. On one hand, as you pointed out, these policies afford many children the opportunity to attend a school where there are not overwhelming numbers of students with extraordinary needs—an opportunity they otherwise would not have. This allows students who need extra support to get more of it, and allows educators in the building to focus more on education. The teacher in me says "Alleluia" to that! And, of course, this also creates a situation where students of various racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds mix during the school day. And since experiencing diversity—in all its forms—is important for success in everything from business to the military, this policy helps all children who are affected by it.
On the flip side, the policies can be restrictive to parents who want their children to attend public schools of a certain quality (in other words, to learn in a school that is filled with other high-achieving students who have stable home lives) or who simply want their children to be close to home. Although some people try to bring race or class prejudice into the equation, I think most parents who oppose socioeconomic diversity policies do so for these reasons. Can parents be blamed for wanting their children to be successful or to get a leg up on their future competition, especially in a global economy that is more competitive than ever? And who can't empathize with parents who feel better knowing that their child is a short distance away in case of an emergency, or who have a daily schedule that is helped by having a child home a few minutes after the final bell rings? The question that seems to be at the heart of the debate is this: Should some parents be expected to give up certain advantages for their children—not unfairly gained—so that other children may have an opportunity for more advantage?
There's always an interesting quandary when it comes to the demands—implicit or explicit—of parents and how school boards handle them. For example, I know of several school districts in Virginia where schools serve, for the most part, an equal number of black and white students. But many of the white parents tend to be upper-middle class and want their children to participate in certain enrichment programs. If the school district funds such a program, it will be comprised mostly of white, well-to-do students who were the most qualified because of advantages they had growing up, and the district risks charges of racism, or of caving to the demands of a small group of parents. If the district does not fund the program, however, it risks losing those parents and their children to private schools who will offer such programs. This would mean less funding for the district, hurting the children who remain in the public schools, and could mean less support from certain segments of the community when the school district needed to pass a bond referendum to raise capital. It all goes back to choice, and the fact that people who have more money have more options. I don't know that there is a "right" answer to this type of situation.
Before putting the ball back in your court, I'd like to share an anecdote about busing. During my first year as a teacher in a chronically low-performing high school, I helped a talented freshman student gain admittance to one of the district's best high schools. I drove her and her mom to the counselor's office there so she could pick out a schedule for the next year, and she was good to go. But after the last day of school, when it was time to tell the school's programmer to push the transfer button and make it official, my student said she wanted to stay. She had grown up near her current school and didn't want to ride a bus for 1.5-2 hours each day. She also didn't like the idea of being so far away from home, or of spending so much less time with her mom. I had a hard time understanding at first, but I eventually realized that we viewed the situation differently. Where I was somewhat myopic, seeing only opportunities for this student to enhance her college and career options, she took a wider view that took into account academic possibilities but also included things like family and convenience. (She ended up attending one of the nation's top liberal arts colleges and will graduate this spring.) I have no problem with busing, but I think some type of choice or community tailoring needs to be built into it in order to accommodate students' and families' unique needs and desires.
Your thoughts?
(Click here for Megan's response, which is Part 3 of our conversation.)
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[...] diversity and school segregation. Catch up on the conversation by reading Monday's and Tuesday's messages, or jump right in with [...]
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iPad 3 banner about half way there. Spot the Apple logo?
Splash of colours should that be related to retina display???
I Miss Steve!
☝what he said 😔
#keynote 😏
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Spirited – Behind the Scenes
National Museum of Australia
Wednesday, 3 September 2014 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM (AEST)
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Event Details
Spirited: A behind the scenes event!
Wednesday 3 September
9–11 am
Get in early to secure an exclusive peek at the installation of the new Spirited: Australia's Horse Story before it opens to the public. Friends will hear curators talk about the making of the exhibition and enjoy a personalised curator led walk through the gallery. Then relax in the Friends Lounge to enjoy a very spirited morning tea. Numbers are strictly limited to 30 so please book early!
Important information: As this exhibition installation is still in progress please wear covered shoes
Have questions about Spirited – Behind the Scenes? Contact National Museum of Australia
When & Where
National Museum of Australia
Lawson Crescent
Wednesday, 3 September 2014 from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM (AEST)
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National Museum of Australia
Spirited – Behind the Scenes
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Fixed PriceDelivery by January 3, 2014
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This is a good look
Originally Posted by The Raven
The OP was purchasing a road bike to ride and you guys are riding down memory lane.
I have a basic dislike for the hipster that puts style in front of function. The other day I saw this guy riding with leather loafers with no socks. Unless he was riding around the block that is just plan dumb and his feet will end up with blisters. It is about the same as the kids that wear pants half way down their ass. They can't even walk but they think they are cool.
With indexed 9 or 10 speed DT shifters, you won't miss a shift or have a noisey or problematic system. I built a bike last year with 10 speed Dura-Ace DT's and it shifted beautifully, all 105 components otherwise. There was nothing nostalgic or memory lane or hipster about it.
Your comment that anyone not on integrated shifters is a hipster focusing on style is both false and insulting. I primarily ride a single speed, on fast group rides and centuries and whatever I want to do. There is nothing hipster about me or it. It is a simple bike, and riding it is simple. It is actually fairly easy to do group rides on an SS, and where people think it is nuts, if they tried it they would understand. I own geared bikes, build gear bikes, and ride what I like. I honestly think many of the "what $400 bike should I buy" threads would be well served with a road geometry single speed, and just ride the dang bike. But I would be ridiculed in the former 41 for that comment, not because it is wrong, but because folks ridicule what they don't understand.
Originally Posted by The Raven
Last edited by v70cat; 03-22-14 at 07:58 PM.
Honestly, I bought my SS to commute on, and I hated it. My geared bike felt faster, and easier, and I could get my heart rate up and keep it there for "training". But then I broke my geared bike, and started doing long rides on the SS, and finally appreciated it. You spin as fast as is comfortable, and then don't sweat it. You climb as best you can, and distract yourself by enjoying the scenery. There is a massive simplicity that changed my rides from " training" to "enjoying". But nobody gets that until they get it. I didn't get it until forced.
I really don't mean to argue, and have not said that any system is bad. But to compare DT's to crank starts, or even a manual choke, is meant to be inflammatory. My snow blower has a manual choke, and it seems to work well. If someone has reasonable expectations, then reasonable systems can match them fine.
Originally Posted by The Raven
Besides...you ever watch any track racing? Plenty of racers riding fixed gear/single speed stuff.
There is nothing at all hard about operating friction shifters anyway. If you had trouble with them, don't use them...it's a simple solution. The pros are shifting to electronic groupsets....better run out and buy one.
"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." - Leo Tolstoy
RollCNY. He was on a single speed and my bike had DT shifters. I will say that he went up the hills more efficiently than me, but it wasn't because he was on a single speed.
Not everything we buy is necessary or made because it makes our lives better.
As to effectively, it depends on the course. On certain terrain, I am as fast on the SS as geared because of the forced conservation of the SS. On other courses it isn't close.
But why does any of this matter? Do you only ride to be the most efficient and effective? If someone races, I get that. For anyone else, I get it sometimes. Yes it is fun to be efficient. And yes it is fun to ride just to ride. But as I said earlier, I did not understand how pleasant a "less efficient" bike, DT or SS or hybrid, is until I was forced into it.
Originally Posted by The Raven
Originally Posted by The Raven
1) "only the past few years that auto mileage has been able to match standard", so today they are better but you live in the past?
2)"only 3.6% of cars sold in the US (2012 data) are standard is no indication of superiority of automatics", I guess everyone is crazy? You are part of the special 0% that drive one speed cars?
Most people prefer auto transmissions and brifters.
Next he will be telling us that his bike got a flat and he has found that he run almost as fast and has given up cycling. This is followed by the fact that his house was lost and he prefers being a caveman. Why farm when you can hunt? Why have tools when you have two hand and stones.
Does he drink a lot?
Last edited by v70cat; 03-23-14 at 08:21 AM.


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Trowbridge town crier to stage 70th birthday fundraiser (From This Is Wiltshire)
Trowbridge town crier to stage 70th birthday fundraiser
Updated 9:20am Wednesday 12th March 2014 in By Craig Jones
Trowbridge town crier Trevor Heeks is marking his 70th birthday by holding a raffle in aid of Larkrise School and Larkrise Community Farm, next weekend.
Mr Heeks will sell tickets at Castle Place Shopping Centre from 10am to 4pm on Friday, March 21 and Saturday, March 22.
Prizes include bottles of alcohol, and winners will be announced on Saturday evening.
Larkrise School serves children with severe disabilities and the farm is a charity that offers placements to young people who live within 30 miles of Trowbridge.
Mr Heeks, whose birthday is on Monday, March 24, said: "I'll be 70 and I have got everything I want, so I thought it would be nice to give a little back."
Comments are closed on this article.


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1. How do I verify my computer's connection to the network?
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3. How do I disable the Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ (WPS) feature of my E1200?
4. What are the common problems with the E1200?
5. How do I troubleshoot intermittent wireless connection with the E1200?
6. What should I do if I am having difficulty connecting to the wireless network?
3. How do I disable the Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ (WPS) feature of my E1200?
The Wi-Fi Protected Setup™ is Enabled by default. To disable this feature, follow the steps below:
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Pros: Nothing!
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Pros: Best overall, Exceptional value, great upgrade path, durable. extra connections on power supply, extra slots and ports on motherboard, industry standard components, excellent website for support and drivers.
Cons: I guess if you will need a serial port, you will need an add on card that might cost you about Jackson or in roman numerals XX.
Other Thoughts: I wish i could name the other companies that this beats out. The other guys are doing things like leaving off mouse and keyboard ports and power supply connections to shave cost. Some of the big names are using low quality capacitors and semiconductors. And some of them simply produce computers that are not well-supported on their own website. Not this company. Thanks Lenovo for keeping it real.
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SalonTech Titanium 450 Flat Iron
SalonTech New Titanium 450 flat iron has quality titanium plates for even distribution and micro-fuse technology which provides precise temperature control. Adjustable temperature dial allows for proper selection for hair type.
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Hakone Gardens in in Saratoga, CA. See the March 15, 2013 blog entry.
Images with the Nikon D800E.
Click each image for a larger version with crops.
Bamboo #1
Sharpness wide open is already excellent. Moreover, the color correction delivers a purity to the out of focus areas.
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It includes hundreds of pages of exclusive coverage and high resolution Retina-grade examples, in-depth analysis of sharpness and contrast, color, bokeh, vignetting, distortion, MTF, and flare, and recommendations and practical usage tips.


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Holly Lodge, Pentre Bychan Road
Wrexham, Clwyd, LL14 4EP
Property Information
This property is a Freehold Detached House and is not a New Build.
|Sold Date:
|13 Sep 2004
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Family Camping Weekend
Posted on by Martha on February 20th, 2015 | Comments Off on Family Camping Weekend
April 29-May 1 at Camp Rainey Mountain – Rain or Shine!!!
We kickoff the Summer Camping season with one of our favorite events of the year! All Scouts and their families can spend the weekend camping in the beautiful mountains of North Georgia.
This event is organized by the Council, and involves Packs and Troops from all over Northeast Georgia.
Activities include games, crafts, hikes, campfire program, or just rocking on the porch (rocking chairs provided).
Held at Camp Rainey Mountain near Clayton, GA. during the weekend of May 1-3 (rain or shine).
Register online here
For more information download this file: Family Camping Weekend
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Making the Tortured Seem Guilty
One of the enduring fault lines of the debate over torture in the United States is that, in general, those who have been close to torture and responsible for torture, from interrogators on up to President Bush and Vice President Cheney, have a very different perspective from many of those outside the loop. While there are plenty of exceptions — some people responsible for torture have turned into whistle blowers, and plenty of members of the general public support torture — as a general rule, people who were responsible for torture firmly believe it did good and that only guilty people were tortured.
This certainly lines up with what we know about human nature, especially cognitive dissonance: "I did it, therefore it must have been right and good." And now, a new study out of Harvard (PDF) shows — via a clever experiment — that complicity in torture makes one more likely to believe that a torture victim is guilty. What's more, the more pain the victim feels, the more the complicit believe he or she is guilty.
Here, from ScienceDaily, is how the experiment was conducted:
The study included 78 participants: half met the woman who was apparently tortured (actually a confederate of the experimenters who was, of course, not harmed at all), and half did not. Participants were told that the study was about moral behavior, and that the woman may have cheated by taking more money than she deserved. The experimenter suggested that a stressful situation might make a guilty person confess, so participants listened for a confession over a hidden intercom as she was subjected to the sham "torture."
The confederate did not admit to cheating but reacted to having her hand submerged in ice water with either indifference or with whimpering and pleading. Participants who had met her rated her as more guilty the more she suffered. Those who did not meet her rated her as more guilty when she felt less pain.
"Those who feel complicit with the torture have a need to justify the torture, and so link the victim's pain to blame," the piece quotes Kurt Gray, a graduate student in psychology and the lead author of the study, as saying. "On the other hand, those distant from torture have no need to justify it and so can sympathize with the suffering of the victim, linking pain to innocence."
The efficacy of torture in soliciting accurate information from a subject is a relatively unsettled question (which is part of why I've argued that torture opponents ought not fight and die on the ground that It Doesn't Work). What's closer to settled, however, is how torture affects the torturer. And, no, I'm not talking about how it morally corrupts one's soul. I'm talking about how it biases the way we look at the information that comes from torture. As I discussed in this post, another problem with torture is the incentives it creates for tortured and torturer. Basically, it serves both for the person being tortured to just say something, anything, so that the torture can stop — because, outside of true sadists, the torturer finds torturing very unpleasant and will take any excuse to not have to keep doing it.
This study out of Harvard just emphasizes the problems for those who would set out to torture. Not only are they predisposed to believe whatever a torture victim says, they're also — by virtue of their complicity in another human being's suffering — more likely to assume that person is guilty. Which makes the prospects of gaining actionable and accurate intelligence from torture all that more dim.
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[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Barry Eisler, ryansager. ryansager said: Study out of Harvard: Complicity in torture makes the victim SEEM guilty — the more pain, the more perceived guilt: http://bit.ly/4iieg2 [...]
[...] Study out of Harvard: Complicity in torture makes the victim SEEM guilty — the more pain, the more perceived guilt http://trueslant.com/ryansager/2009/10/27/making-the-tortured-seem-guilty/ [...]
[...] From Ryan Sager's blog in the USA: Making the Tortured Seem Guilty [...]
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Prince George's County Police say 75-year-old Oscar Harry Washington has been found safe.
Washington, who suffers from memory loss, was reported missing after he disappeared from his daughter's backyard in Bowie on July 15, police said.
After a search of the area, officers found the retired carpenter about a half mile from his daughter's home. Authorities say Washington sat up and walked toward them after they called his name.


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Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice For All
Published by Capcom, Developed by Capcom
Genres: Adventure
US release date: Feb 15th, 2010 | EU release date: Feb 19th, 2010
Price: 1000 points
Phoenix Wright is back as the second game in the popular Ace Attorney hand-held franchise comes to the WiiWare service.
As Phoenix Wright, you'll play through four shocking new cases in first-person perspective. The game features two unique game play modes. In Investigations Mode, you'll survey crime scenes, interview witnesses and gather evidence. You'll then present findings, listen to testimonials and examine witnesses in Court Mode. JUSTICE FOR ALL also includes a new "Psyche-Lock" feature that allows Phoenix to use a line of questioning to reveal inconsistencies in witness testimony.
Very good
Only a month or two after Phoenix Wright's first release on WiiWare comes a sequel, Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney: Justice for All. Though it isn't as long as Ace Attorney, nor are the plots as good, Justice for all is nonetheless a terrific buy for 1000 Wii points. First off,...read full review
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Nintendo President Satoru Iwata Passes Away at 55
Rest In Peace
Nintendo has detailed the return of its World Championship
Do you have what it takes?
Disney Infinity 3.0 Edition Officially Revealed
The Force is strong with this one...
Rumor: Disney Infinity 3.0 Leaked Early
Straight from a Galaxy Far, Far Away...
Mario Kart 8 DLC Pack 2...OH YEAAAAH!
Nintendo should do this more.
The Nintendo GameCube: An Interesting Legacy
Will The Wii U Have a Similar Fate?
Project Ukulele - Possible Hint at Characters
Could it be?
Free to Play Pokemon Shuffle now available on 3DS eShop
Nintendo offers another micro-transaction based title
Gold Mario Amiibo is a Wal-Mart Exclusive
Get ready to shell out your coins
Area Effect Announces Izle for Wii U
Part action, part adventure, all cel-shaded
Karaoke Joysound
Released on July 3rd, 2014
Deer Drive Legends
Released on November 19th, 2013
Retro City Rampage
Released on February 28th, 2013
Vampire Crystals
Released on December 20th, 2012
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Released on October 18th, 2012
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sghujd ... iWin supporting Virtual Console
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Aston Villa have ended their interest in Torquay United youngster Liam Prynn.
The Express & Star says the £50,000 move is off after the young Cornishman apparently suffered a bout of homesickness.
United's Head of Youth Geoff Harrop revealed: "Liam just couldn't settle up there.
"Plenty of people from both clubs tried to help, and Villa did their best - they've been brilliant about the whole thing.
"But Liam just wasn't happy there."
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2012 - A Year of Art by DanielGovarWatch
©2012-2016 DanielGovar
Here's to the next year of art and stories!
Your Temeraire works never cease to amaze me, excellent work!
Thanks! It was a fun start to last year With luck I'll be doing a lot more dragon work in the new year
what is this Relaunch with Perazza?! Here's to another great year bro.


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Film Forum kicks off its 15-film Nicholas Ray retrospective today in New York with a week-long run of the twisted, hard-boiled love story "In a Lonely Place", starring Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame.
"Ray's career in Hollywood was relatively brief and frequently frustrating. He flourished in the 1950s and was responsible for one of the decade's cinematic touchstones, 'Rebel Without a Cause.' That movie, like 'In a Lonely Place,' takes a fairly conventional template and fills it with wild, extravagant emotions and hyperbolically expressive cinematic effects," writes the New York Times' A. O. Scott. "There may be no other director in the Hollywood mainstream (where Ray was never altogether comfortable) whose vision is at once so bleak and so luxuriously satisfying. As the '50s went on, he shifted from black and white to Technicolor and CinemaScope, and the deep colors and widescreen format brought his blend of Method naturalism, psychosexual subtext and operatic scale to lustrous and splendid new life."
"Nicholas Ray's 'In a Lonely Place' is the grayest, most morally ambiguous of film noirs - and arguably the most self-reflexive," asserts J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. "Released in 1950, two and a half years after the House Un-American Activities Committee put Hollywood on the stand, and a few months ahead of 'Sunset Boulevard,' 'In a Lonely Place' similarly represents the movie industry as a crime scene, with a troubled screenwriter as its conflicted protagonist... Hollywood atmosphere, existential malaise, and political subtext combine to inform a sensational love story, played on the edge of the void and strong enough to sustain one of the most shamelessly romantic lines in any movie: 'I was born when you kissed me. I died when you left me. I lived a few weeks while you loved me.' The line occurs twice, spoken at different points in the drama by each of the lovers, just to make sure that we never forget it."
From Michael Joshua Rowin's review for L Magazine: "As dark, bitter, and wholly real as they come out of the post-war studio system, noir melodrama 'In a Lonely Place' was director Nicholas Ray's first masterpiece. It also provided the most volatile and vulnerable role in the career of Humphrey Bogart, who plays Hollywood screenwriter Dixon Steele (don't laugh) with an intensity verging on the personal... Ray's directorial palette is comprised entirely of fever-pitch emotions - love, doubt, jealousy, fear, regret - and Bogart unfurls them, impotently raging against his demonic habits and unfairly taking the pressure he feels out on Graham."
"Watching it again in advance of its upcoming engagement at New York's Film Forum, where it'll show in a sparkling new print, I was struck at how, almost as acutely as Wilder's 'The Lost Weekend,' the picture presents a sort of case study in alcoholism," writes Glenn Kenny in his piece on the film for the Auteur's Notebook.
The House Next Door has a video appreciation of "In A Lonely Place."
Looking ahead to the rest of the series, V.A. Musetto at the New York Post says to "Look also for 'Party Girl' (1958), with Robert Taylor as a crooked lawyer and Cyd Charisse as a showgirl; 'On Dangerous Ground' (1952), featuring Robert Ryan as a NYC cop and Ida Lupino as the blind girl he falls for (music by Hitchcock favorite Bernard Herrmann); and 'A Woman's Secret' (1949), with Grahame, Maureen O'Hara and Melvyn Douglas."


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Puppy finds human skull in eastern Noble
NOBLE — An adult human skull found by a Labrador puppy on Thursday is being studied by the medical examiner's office. The puppy was outside playing in eastern Noble when it brought the adult skull back to the family's porch, said Cleveland County Sheriff's Capt. Doug Blaine. "There was no tissue on the skull, and it was covered and filled with mud," Blaine said. The sheriff's department is reviewing its missing persons reports for the past several years and plans to consult with other agencies as it tries to identify the remains.


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You won't be able to dismiss this by usual means (escape or click button), but you can close it programatically based on user choices or actions.
"My fiancée actually picked this design for our save the dates! I wasn't sold on it at first, but it was his favorite, and after we personalized it and made it look exactly how we wanted it to, I started to love it. Once they arrived in the mail, I was so impressed with the quality and how cute they turned out! I'm definitely glad we chose this design, and that we were able to do some things to make it our own. We will absolutely be returning to personalize and purchase formal invitations!"
"I am so beyond happy with my Save The Dates! They match our wedding theme along with being pretty in general. I love how I was able to upload any picture I wanted and to change the fonts! I wish I could have changed the actual "Save The Date" font because the S looks almost like a W, but that wasn't an option. But that's ok, the other components more than make up for it! The paper was good thick quality, I love them!"
"All the text on the card was customizable, and the person I wrote to back and forth was helpful and quick to respond. The paper was good quality and all my guests thought the idea of a library card was really cute to tell our story."
"I used the Majestic purple for my lettering and it turned out beautiful! I was so pleased when I opened my package. And even though I used the free simple cardstock, it was absolutely perfect! It got here before the date I was estimated to receive it. It only took about a week to get here, and I used the cheapest shipping"
"My fíance and I were un sure how the magnets were going to come out. But we received the order very quickly and when we saw them they were Perfect! We have had so many compliments on the save the dates and would very much recommend the Paper Divas!"


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File format for print?
Started Feb 8, 2014 | Discussions thread
Shop cameras & lenses ▾
BrandonTT • Junior Member • Posts: 38
File format for print?
So, I happened to come across 500px file specifications for print, and I'm a tad bit confused. I thought jpgs could only be 8-bit? Is there actually a way to keep pro-photo 16-bit as jpg exporting via PS CS6+??
"Requirements for Canvas Print sales:
- No watermarks, signatures, or borders please!
- Uploads must be JPG/JPEG files
- Photos must be at least 3000 pixels along their longest side
- 8-bit or 16-bit color
- Colour profile must be embedded in the file sRGB, Adobe1998 or ProPhoto"
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I made this childrens book for my two grandsons.. Carter and Canon..
BEEs, Grandmas, grandkids , apples and blossoms and how they all connect(:) just with a simple walk together ~
I always find something to do or make ......... this book is one of my ventures(:)
Comment posted.
phoenix06 says What a cute way to explain the wonders of nature
posted at 08:08PM Sep 01 PST
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THe ANTS in THe HiLL Published August 25, 2010


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Inquisitive minds want to know
Someone obviously has too much time on his hands. Several years ago, before we became empty nesters, my son was bored and browsing the Internet. He called me downstairs and showed me a website developed especially for bored people.
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iHerb Customer Reviews
Savings of: $15.54 (37% off)
Recommended by Dr.
Posted by Reviewer2951187 on Jan 24, 2008
My dr. recommended this product to help balance Estrogen in body, after being a Breast Cancer survivor.
Estrogen support
Posted by Reviewer2445310 on Sep 05, 2008
Being on my late twenties, the estrogen gets a little out of hand specially a week before my cycle. This product help me to make sure my hormones stay in check during those critical moments.
cannot do without this product
Posted by Reviewer1117222 on Jul 04, 2009
DIM was advised for me by my doctor in order to help with my menstrual cycles. I purchased it locally for a MUCH higher price and was thrilled with the results after only one month. I now depend on iHerb for ordering Nature's Way, DIM-Plus. I honestly couldn't do without it.
Don't be without it!
Posted by Reviewer2127161 on Apr 25, 2010
This product helps keep my hot flashes at bay and also gives me a boost of energy.
Helps w/ everything
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Love this product. Helps keep me regulated on my cycle. Helps w/ my Estrogen dominance, periods are much lighter. Also helps me to lose weight. Can't live without it.
So far so good
Posted by Reviewer1337854 on Dec 03, 2009
Have only been using this for a month for estrogen dominance. First time in a long time no breast soreness and bad mood swings. Hopefully next month the bad cramps will be better. Would reccomend to to help with fibro/hormone related increased pain near period.
I believe it's good
Posted by Reviewer2776030 on Feb 09, 2011
I haven't noticed a difference and I've been taking it for 3 months now - am still getting estrogen attacks and my cycle is still not quite right. However, I'm not blaming the product - I was taking reishi and discovered it is estrogenic so I don't think the DIM could counteract it. I believe, despite my lack of results, that this is a good product, I trust it, and it's an excellent price. I may go off it for a month to test it's effect
love it
Posted by Reviewer2639115 on Jan 13, 2011
Have had great results after about a month of use. I'm on my 5th month now and have not felt this good in a long time. In my mid 40's - no more mood swings, much less night sweats. Great product- especially taken with Nature's Plus Femaprin.
Posted by Reviewer2988663 on Jan 03, 2011
Can not live without this product,it turned my bad estrogen into good,i recomend this to everyone
Posted by Reviewer2016458 on Jan 08, 2011
until i came across the iherb reviews, i really didnt know what was off with me just knew something was, i just turned 40 and have had period and mood issues and migraines terrible ones, but these paired with the PMS control by natrol actually helped my usually miserable 2 weeks out of the month terrible mood swings cramps and migraines which were kicked by the herbal Migraine meds i got on iherb as well, SO much i will be taking these daily and the PMS control monthly in hopes the longer i am on them the better things will be for me.. good quality and price.. will reorder!