Category Archives: News & Reviews

I was listening to local public radio station
KQED this morning while driving my son Paul to school. One of the regular
programs, The California Report,
featured a long story by reporter Oanh Ha on the history of Sun Microsystems and rumors
that our company is being acquired by IBM. Sun was profiled as a world-class
Engineering company more in love with creating innovative technology like
Java than concerned with making money.
I have worked at Sun since before he was born, so the report made for an interesting discussion with Paul.

The audio story is now available on
The California Report web page:

Sun Microsystems, IBM and Silicon Valley

The California Report

Mon, March 30, 2009 — 8:50am

“Every time you’re on the Internet, some of the digital magic you encounter comes from a programming language called Java. The company behind that software is a Silicon Valley pioneer, Sun Microsystems. Now, reports abound that IBM is in discussions to acquire Sun. If the deal goes through, it would mark an end to a chapter in Silicon Valley history and likely bring more jobs cuts to the Valley.”

Host: Rachael Myrow

Reporters: Oanh Ha

I contributed two entries to
The Ada Lovelace Day Collection of blogs in honor of yesterday’s
Ada Lovelace Day. About Ada:
Ada Lovelace was
born Augusta Ada Byron, she wrote the world’s first computer programs for
the
Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer designed by
Charles Babbage in 1837.

The Ada Lovelace Day Collection blog project
overachieved its goal of collecting a thousand blog posts to draw attention
to women excelling in technology. The total count now is 1119 posts in
honor of women famous and private. The reasoning behind this project created by
Suw Charman-Anderson was:

“Women’s contributions often go unacknowledged, their innovations seldom mentioned, their faces rarely recognised. We want you to tell the world about these unsung heroines. Entrepreneurs, innovators, sysadmins, programmers, designers, games developers, hardware experts, tech journalists, tech consultants. The list of tech-related careers is endless.

Recent research by psychologist Penelope Lockwood discovered that

women need to see female role models more than men need to see male ones. That’s a relatively simple problem to begin to address. If women need female role models, let’s come together to highlight the women in technology that we look up to. Let’s create new role models and make sure that whenever the question ‘Who are the leading women in tech?’ is asked, that we all have a list of candidates on the tips of our tongues.”

The two entries I added to The Ada Lovelace Day Collection were

Savvy Geek Chix and Anita Borg (24 March 2009) and

Jeanie Treichel (13 March 2009).

On 11 February, the attention-getting tactics of Highway 101
billboards in the Silicon Valley escalated in energy, if not in good taste.
For many years, these very large and expensive rental signs have competed
for drivers’ attention with increasingly bold bright graphics, 3D projections,
and provocative text.

Last month,
news sources reported that Grant Paulson of Pleasanton spent $10,000 to buy
billboard space between University and Embarcadero on 101, posting a long message
to California Senator Joe Simitian,
criticizing him for his efforts to pass a cell phone ban for California drivers.
The Senator reportedly thought the critical billboard was funny.
The sign was supposed to come down by the end of February, but it was still up
this morning. Maybe the billboard company does not have anyone else who wants
to rent that space?

The 75-word hard-to-read sign says: “Senator Joe Simitian: Your cell phone law sucks. Amazing how 1 man’s bad idea can screw over & inconvenience millions of people in CA. Let’s overturn this law in the next election & protect what rights we still have left.”

By my own observations, many of my fellow 101 drivers ignore the new law and continue
to drive with cell phone to ear, supporting Grant Paulson’s sentiments in their own way.
That the billboard went up and stays up is a peculiar tribute to free speech.

Image Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson

We cancelled our local newspaper subscription a few years
ago when the advertisements overwhelmed the news. I stopped
watching TV over ten years ago. Here are my
favorite sources of news:

• The Economist a thoughtful weekly
  analysis from a non-US point of view

• NPR – National Public Radio –
  by way of KQED 88.5 FM for
  balanced daily news, analysis, discussion, and entertainment.
• The Santa Cruz Comic News
  for great weekly political cartoons and News of the Wierd
• Science News
  a biweekly summary of important and emerging research in all
  fields of science

Spring is here in Northern California. Here’s how I know…

My garden toad is out and about

My daffodils are blooming

Daffodil up close

Resurrection lily leaves are out

It’s dry enough for sidewalk chalk

Manzanita is blooming

Images Copyright 2009 by Katy Dickinson and John Plocher