Sun’s Advertisements for Hopper

Sun is a Platinum level Sponsor of the
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
2007 (in Orlando, Florida:
October 17-20, 2007). Platinum sponsors get to include an advertisement
in the conference program. Those of us working on Sun’s participation in the conference had fun picking the image and writing the text. Here is the finished version of our ad for Hopper 2007 (which we received yesterday).
Click on the images to see a bigger version.





Sun Copyright 2007, Reprinted with permission

For comparison, here is the advertisement Sun used last year (for Hopper 2006):





Sun Copyright 2006, Reprinted with permission

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Filed under Hopper - Anita Borg Institute

Toxic Phone Lines, Broken DSL

I haven’t been able to post any photos to my blog, or even
read and write email from home with any ease since we got
back from our camping vacation on 17 August. Our

DSL
service (by Covad) and
phone lines (AT&T) have been seriously messed up. After many laboriously-scheduled and days-delayed home visits by technical support
from both Covad and AT&T, we understand that the phone wires are too long
from AT&T’s central office, plus the wires are old and deteriorating.
Many customers in our area of Willow Glen (San Jose) complain frequently
but we have not heard that there is any plan to fix the problem. Our
next door neighbor uses

cable modem
(which he says works great at 2 a.m. but less well otherwise).

John has contacted
Etheric Networks about getting radio

broadband
point-to-point high speed internet installed to replace DSL.
Since we had Sprint broadband (before their performance tanked),
we already have an antenna bolted to our chimney. We hope that the
new service can be installed tomorrow afternoon. It costs more but
does not rely on phone lines to work. It also will allow us to continue
to have our own servers with static IP addresses.

Right now, in order to read email for about 10 minutes before it breaks
again, I have to:

    1. Go downstairs to the basement and toggle the round button on
      the back of the BritePort DSL modem so that it resets
    2. Go upstairs to my desk, unplug then replug my SunRay
    3. Wait 3 minutes for the login box to appear on my monitor
    4. Use my Sun enigmacard to generate a password
    5. Wait 3 minutes for everything to reset over and over and finally
      display my current work space
    6. Work really quick until it breaks. Start over.

Oh, the joys of trying to work from home.

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Welcome 2007-2008 SEED Mentors

Congratulations and welcome to the 68 mentoring pairs in the
SEED Engineering mentoring program 2007-2008 terms! Here are
some 2007-2008 Metrics:

    • SEED Alumni

        10 mentors this term have also been SEED program participants
    • Executives

      • Recent Hire Mentors include:
        • 1 Fellow/Vice President
        • 4 VPs
        • 5 Distinguished Engineers
        • 4 Directors
        • 58% executives overall
      • Established Staff Mentors include:
        • 1 Fellow/Vice President
        • 7 VPs
        • 15 Distinguished Engineers
        • 11 Directors
        • 77% executives overall
    • Mentor Experience with SEED

      • 21 Mentors are serving for the 1st time with SEED (31%)
      • 19 Mentors are in their 2nd SEED term (28%)
      • 16 Star Mentors are in their 3rd or 4th term (24%)
      • 13 Superstar Mentors are in their 5th to 10th SEED term (19%)
    • Location

      • 41 mentoring pairs are working at a distance – in different
        states or countries (60%)
      • 27 work in the same area or the same town (40%)
    • Priority

      • 88% of participants (59 count) were matched with one of their
        top four priority choices on their Mentor Wish List:

        50 with #1 or #2


        9 with #3 or #4


        9 with someone at #5 or lower in priority
      • 6 participants had to prepare more than one Mentor Wish List
        this term. 5 of those were because the 1st list was incomplete.
    • Cycle Time

      • 1st email invitations went to potential mentors on 9 July 2007.
      • Last match was confirmed in email on 23 August 2007.
      • This was a 47 day matching cycle.

More information on SEED is available at
http://research.sun.com/SEED/

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Books Purchased

I have been unpacking the 2 boxes of books my family bought for ourselves at the All Saints’ Episcopal Church Library used book sale we helped to staff last weekend. (It is very hard to work on a book sale and not pick up some gems.)
For $40, we came home with:

    1. 2 new blank books (journals)
    2. The Home University Bookshelf v.VIII – Stories from Every Land (1927) – lovely illustrations!
    3. The Riverside Shakespeare (1974)

 

  • Maya Angelou’s A Brave and Startling Truth
  • Supurna Banerjee’s Once Upon a Campus
  • Edgar Rice Burroughs’ The Moon Maid
  • R.J. DeCristoforo’s Power Tool Woodworking for Everyone (1953)
  • Josephine Whitney Duveneck’s Life on Two Levels – An Autobiography
  • Harlan Ellison’s Dangerous Visions
  • Harlan Ellison’s Again, Dangerous Visions v.1
  • Judy Fireman’s Cat Catalog – The Ultimate Catbook
  • Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale (1964 printing)
  • Lindsey Fraser’s Conversations with J.K. Rowling
  • Kate Peck Kent’s Navajo Weaving – Three Centuries of Change
  • R.F. Roster’s Hoyle’s Games (1926)
  • Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
  • Terry Gross’ All I Did was Ask – Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists
  • Mark Haddon’s the curious incident of the dog in the night-time
  • H. Rider Haggard’s “She.” (1896)
  • C.J. Cutcliffe Hyne’s The Lost Continent – the Story of Atlantis
  • Mark Kurlanksy’s Salt – a World History
  • Jean Marlow’s Audition Speeches for Young Actors
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The General in his Labyrinth
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Leaf Storm and other stories
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera
  • Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Of Love and Other Dreams
  • McMahon and Gallagher’s The Gardens at Filoli
  • Metcalfe and Hays’ Being Dead is No Excuse – The Official Southern Ladies Guide to Hosting the Perfect Funeral
  • Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman – Certain private conversations in two acts and a requiem (1949) “A New Play by Arthur Miller”
  • Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Ariadne’s Thread – A Workbook of Goddess Magic
  • Mullock’s The Little Lame Prince illustrated (1907)
  • Jane C. Nylander’s Fabrics for Historic Buildings
  • Richard C. Nylander’s Wallpapers for Historic Buildings
  • Arturo Petez-Reverte’s The Nautical Chart
  • Yanni Petsopoulos’ Kilims – Masterpieces from Turkey
  • Ebenezer Prout’s Harmony: its theory and practice (1889)
  • Henry Rosovsky’s The University – An Owner’s Manual
  • Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation
  • Paul Scott’s Staying On
  • Albert Schweitzer’s African Notebook
  • Anne Sexton’s The Complete Poems
  • Nevil Shute’s An Old Captivity
  • Joseph Soloman’s Mozartiana – Two centuries of Notes, Quotes, and Anecdotes about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age (to replace our worn-out copy)
  • Bruce Sterling’s Shaping Things
  • Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve
  • Carl von Clausewitz’s Principles of War
  • H.G. Wells The Outline of History with maps (1921)
  • H.G. Wells The War of the Worlds (1977)
  • Adrian Wilson’s The Design of Books

 

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Filed under Church

Used Book Sale a Success!

The All Saints’ Episcopal Church
Library used book sale and free lemonade stand last weekend was a
success in many dimensions. We intentionally priced the donated books low
($1/hardcover, 50 cents for paperbacks) but we still took in our
highest amount ever:

    • 2007 book sale: $1225
    • 2006 book sale: $1117
    • 2005 book sale: $1009
    • 2004 book sale: $643

$1225 represents maybe 700 people who came to browse or buy last
weekend during the annual Palo Alto Festival of the Arts. About a dozen
book browsers also asked to talk with the Rector, wanted a
church tour, or sought more information about the courtyard

labyrinth
. The book sale made the church available to people in a
comfortable way. Evangelism comes hard for us
Episcopalians (who are
sometimes jokingly referred to as God’s “frozen chosen”). Talking
about books and making new friends over lemonade is easier.

I don’t know how many people came because of
the two craigslist entries
I posted but that may have helped boost sales.

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Used Book Sale (All Saints’ Library) 25-26 August

Come by and buy books from me tomorrow!

Used Book Sale (All Saints’ Library)

25-26 August 2007 (Saturday and Sunday)

11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

All Saints’ Episcopal Church presents its annual Used Book Sale
along with a free Lemonade Stand during the weekend of the
Palo Alto Festival of the Arts.

Hardcovers are $1 Paperbacks are 50 cents.
Some collectibles for higher prices. Bag sale after 4 p.m. Sunday.

http://asaints.org/
555 Waverley (between University/Hamilton)
Palo Alto, CA

Hope to see you there!

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Wisdom Teeth Notes

My 15-year-old son had all 4
wisdom teeth
removed yesterday. When they started to come in, the new teeth were
making his already-straightened-by-braces teeth crooked again. The surgery went well: it only required
a local anesthetic and did not take long. To make up for having surgery on his birthday,
Paul has been enjoying unlimited ice cream. Since it hurt him to
talk, my husband John gave Paul a small pad of paper. Here is the collection of
little notes from Paul on the way home from the dentist:

  • I would like the chocolate ice cream first when we get home
    because vanilla makes lots of foam when you have it with 7up or Sprite.
  • Whenever I swallow, it tastes of blood and is making me nauseated and
    headachy.
  • It is very hard to swallow and I have minor hickups and yawns.
  • By the time this is over, this stack of paper will be very small.
  • The numbness feels like it is slowly crawling up my skull and my
    headache is getting worse in the places that are not numb yet.
  • When we were in the parking lot, I saw a minivan going really fast
    into the parking lot then swerving perfectly into a parking space
    and after a few seconds they went towards the Safeway.
  • You were shuffling the notes.
  • They said no rinsing for one hour.
  • The taste of blood in my mouth is diminishing somewhat.
  • The worst part of this right now is I can’t really move my tongue
    and my tongue is tickling.
  • How are we going to switch out the gauze?
  • Hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel, not knees at 5 and 7.
  • I need a blow horn to call you when I need you because I cannot shout.

Paul is feeling much better today.

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