Month: October 2006

The Future of Computing

Digital Rules by Rich Karlgaard is almost always thought provoking. Recently he pointed to a fascinating article by George Gilder titled The Information Factories.  Gilder talks about how  we are moving towards massive centralized computing and what this means in terms of power consumption and  computer design. He estimates that "the total of electricity consumed by major search engines in 2006 approaches 5 gigawatts…..   Five gigawatts is almost enough to power the Las Vegas metropolitan area… on the hottest day of the year."   

Gilder who is known as a futurist says that "For the moment, at least, the power of massive parallelism has far outstripped the promise of alternative computing architectures" but he anticipates that just as centralized computing gave way to the PC revolution the pendulum will swing again. New technologies and the next wave of innovation "will compress today’s parallel solutions…. and transform the calculus of storage, bandwidth, and power that gives centralization its current advantage."

I think it is prescient that when he is talking about the future of computing he  quotes Andy Bechtolsheim who is one of Sun’s founders and is currently Sun’s Chief Architect and Senior Vice President of Network Systems. I predict and, in fact, hope that Sun will manage to lead the way into this new future.

The Big Day!

I think it rather ironic that I left Sun after 18 years at least partly because of the possibility of being laid off. Sun does so many lay offs that they can say that lay offs are a core competency.Today I was laid off by a profitable company that is rated one of the very top companies to work for in the country. Of course this isn’t the whole story. Had I looked I might have found another job and then I would still be employed. Instead I quite happily chose to retire.

So today is probably the end of my work life. I say probably because I haven’t ruled out taking on another job or consulting assignment that really excites me. But for now I have reached that very exciting major milestone, Retirement! I am still sad to see the project I put all my energy into for the last 17 months die and I am sad to be leaving a lot of new friends but mostly I am very  excited about all the possibilities in front of me.

A few updates on activities this week…. My non fiction book club met Wednesday night. we read Rosalind Franklin: The Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox. In this biography Maddox does a masterful job of describing complex science and of telling Franklin’s story. It is a compelling book and I highly recommend it.

Last night we went to Yoshi’s and saw Earl Klugh perform. I always enjoy live music at Yoshi’s and although I wasn’t familiar with Klugh’s music I really enjoyed the show.

Santa Cruz County Open Studios Art Tour

Last weekend we went to the Cultural Council of Santa Cruz County’s 21st Annual Open Studios Art Tour. This is the third or fourth year we have attended and we always have a good time. To attend the tour you buy a calendar and map of the almost 300 open studios and then you pick the ones you want to visit. The tour runs over three weekends so you can visit as many or as few as you want to.  There are several reasons why the tour is a fun thing to do. The obvious first reason is that it is interesting to see the art. But in addition to seeing the art it is also fun to meet and talk to the artists, to see where and how they create their art and to drive around Santa Cruz county and see the beautiful scenery and homes.

This year my favorite artists that we visited were Julia Cairns, Michael Eckerman and Marilyn Kuksht.

Julia Cairns is an artist/ illustrator who lived in Africa for a number of years and has illustrated several children’s books. I really liked her paintings too. Her studio was in an old house overlooking the ocean half way between Santa Cruz and Half Moon Bay. As an added treat we got to see a wild bobcat out the window of our car as we were navigating the dirt road leading to her studio.

Michael Eckerman uses river rock to make the most wonderful sculptures and fireplaces. His studio was in a residential area of Santa Cruz.

Marilyn Kuksht does metal sculpture. The works that she was displaying had a marvelous  way of flowing and of symbolizing their subject that I thought was very powerful. Her studio was north of Santa Cruz, just off highway one, right next to a field of Brussels sprouts.

Some of the studios on the tour will be open next weekend. Eckerman is the only one of the the three artists above who will be open. If you get a chance try to go next year. I highly recommend it.

The HP Soap Opera

I’ve been following the HP board of directors melt down for a while and have formed opinions about the key characters in this drama/tragedy/comedy. There was big article about it in last Sunday’s San Jose Mercury News. I also watched the 60 Minutes interview with Patricia Dunn which helped me clarify my thoughts.

In case you haven’t been following this story. Patricia Dunn was chairman of the HP board of directors. Jay Keyworth a member of the board was leaking secret information from board meetings to the press.Tom Perkins was also on the board and was good friend of Keyworth’s. Dunn commissioned an investigation to find the leaker and unmasked  Keyworth. Perkins quit and stormed off the board. He supposedly quit because he found out that the investigation used shady techniques to get the phone records of board members. Keyworth was voted off the board and Dunn has since been forced to resign from the board. She has been indicted for her roll in the investigation. Here are my caricatures of  Dunn, Keyworth, Perkins, and the lawyers Baskins, Kiernan and Sonsini. My opinions are just that my opinions, so take them with a grain of salt.

Patricia Dunn is an extraordinarily smart and hard working woman who got to her position as chairman of the board of HP through team work, being smart and hard work. She came from a very modest background and has overcome enormous obstacles to get where she is.  I’ve worked with women like her and I have nothing but admiration for her and what she accomplished. Given that she is responsible for some very unethical perhaps even illegal behavior it may be surprising but I admire what I believe is her honesty and work ethic. She was torpedoed and sunk as a result of  scheming and dishonesty led especially by Perkins. She took the bait and the bad guys won. Of course the buck stops with her but she was certainly misserved by her lawyers who should take a lot of the blame for this mess. I think I identify with her. If I worked harder and was more driven I could imagine myself in her shoes. Hopefully I wouldn’t have approved the investigation but she certainly was in a no win situation.

When you’ve got a team like HP’s board where the team members don’t trust each other you have a dysfunctional team. The only way to fix such a team is to get rid of the rotten apples and if you can’t prove who the rotten apples are it is pretty much hopeless. Dunn would have failed is she didn’t identify the leaker and what she did to find him has also destroyed her.

Tom Perkins is the rich venture capitalist who personifies all that is wrong with business. He thinks the rules don’t apply to him. He seems to think he is smarter than everyone else and instead of being forthright and open he enjoyed masterminding the fall of Dunn. Dunn said "He wanted me off the board. This was to get me off the board. I don’t know if he ever thought through the consequences that would go beyond my getting off the board,"  I’ve also worked with people like him. I have an almost visceral reaction to him based on my experiences. Unfortunately being political and underhanded is often a game that works. My impression is that Perkins enjoys the game and he won this game at the expense of HP and its employees and stockholders. Ugh!

Jay Keyworth is another rich old guy who thought the rules didn’t apply to him. I’m sure he would encourage punishing leakers but he thought he knew better than others what the press should know.

Finally the lawyers. I am with Rich Karlgaard, Publisher of Forbes, that the HP lawyers should be fired. They can take a lot of the blame for all this. Dunn depended on them and they didn’t do their job.

Finally I am reminded of something I learned in an ethics class at Sun, If you aren’t sure about whether something is ethical think about whether it would be a problem if it appeared on the front page of the New York Times. Your answer to that question is a great smell test for whether something is OK to do or not. It is too bad Dunn as the captain of the ship didn’t apply this test before she OKed the leak investigation.

Shopping for a New Computer

Since my Compaq desktop computer died several months ago I have been using my work laptop as my home computer too. But now that I only have 6 more days of work left before I retire 🙂 I need to buy a new home computer. Since I am planning to do a lot of traveling and blogging as I travel I want to buy a laptop. I already have a good monitor and keyboard for home use. I am just starting the shopping/ research process. I would be very interested in any suggestions or advice that people might have about what to buy and how to buy it.