Dan Roberts on OpenSolaris ... or Something Useful in our meeting!

As part of the existing OpenSolaris constitution, we (the OpenSolaris Governing Board) are required to hold an annual "meeting" before the election in order for the election to be valid. While, generally, this involves a fetch a rock exercise of core contributors (aka "members") logging into the forum, announcing themselves, then logging off, we do occasionally have useful and interesting conversations here. (and before you comment how silly that requirement is, please note that we have a new proposed constitution at this year's election that removes the annual meeting requirement).

Peter Tribble invited Dan Roberts to our virtual meeting the day after it started, and he joined and was very forthcoming about Oracle and their thoughts on OpenSolaris and Solaris:

"Oracle is investing more in Solaris than Sun did prior to the acquisition, and will continue to contribute technologies to OpenSolaris, as Oracle already does for many other open source projects."

While not all questions could be answered at that time, I was very pleased to see the community being engaged and concerns listened to.

TADA Presents Godspell!

We were lucky enough to catch one of the final dress rehearsals for TADA!'s musical, Godspell! TADA!'s group of "Blue Plaid Players" put on an annual production to raise money for the performing arts at Presentation High School in San Jose. This year's cast is full of teachers and alums from the school, along with a few parents and just happy actors. With such a motley collection, you might think the performance would be subpar - but it wasn't!

I had originally thought they had brought in ringers for Jesus and John the Baptist/Judas, but Chris Cozart (Jesus) and Eric Buell (John the Baptist/Judas) are both teachers from Presentation! Who knew the halls of this Catholic girl's school was holding so much talent!

I loved the costumes, by Diana DieBold, which were very eclectic and reminiscent of the Original production of Godspell in 1970. Director Jim Houle took the usual liberties with the script by updating a few scenes. One demonstrates the pitfalls of greed with a recent flash back to the housing debacle, and the prodigal son was retold with ... Star Wars characters! Great lighting from Heather Kenyon, too.

Other standout performers included Kristen Gradwohl, Kris Heiser, Dave Coldren, Scott King... well, and everyone else in the cast! If you get a chance to catch this show, it opens on January 16th and runs through January 24th.

Goodbye, Grandma Dianne

2009 was a bad year for the women I called Grandma. I lost Grandma-ma (mother's mom) on January 1, 2009. Grandma Dianne, my father's stepmother, passed on December 30, 2009, after a long battle with osteoporosis and COPD, at the age of 87.

Some would say she wasn't my grandmother at all, as we had no blood ties, but to me she was the only grandmother I ever knew on my dad's side. My dad's mother, Ginny (aka Munner to my siblings) died when my mother was pregnant with me, so I never met her (though I heard many wonderful stories about her).

I have many happy childhood memories of staying at Grandma Dianne's house, and walking through the woods with Grandaddy and visiting with my cousins, Leslie and Mike, that lived nearby. Grandma Dianne always had a few pesky, yet photogenic, raccoons living in the woods behind the house - we loved to watch them as children. Grandaddy passed away in 1981, but we still visited Dianne often for years to come.

After I moved away to school, I couldn't visit, but regularly exchanged lengthy letters with Grandma Dianne. She often included pictures of her dogs and shared stories of her youth, and I was always so happy to see a note from her in my dorm mail box.

As the years went by, Dianne stopped replying to my correspondence, but did tell my mother how happy she was to receive them. She was embarrassed of how much her hand writing had deteriorated, so I started calling her instead. It was always nice to talk to her, as she would reminisce about Grandaddy (Danny, to her), her sister and father, her beloved dogs: Missy, Daisy and a charcoal colored one she had as a girl, and about her travels to England as a young woman. She was always excited to hear about the shows I was in or had recently seen and all of the trips I had been taking, always asking for more pictures.

She spoke frequently of how much she loved her 6 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren, even though some of the great-grandchildren lived far away and she never got to see them in person.

This year for Christmas, my parents gave me Grandma Dianne's china. I was pretty sure this china was passed down from her English ancestors, but when I called her to thank her for them, she was already too weak to answer the phone.

I will miss my phone calls with her. To me, she was always my grandmother.

How Doctors Think: A review

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This was a phenomenal book that changed the way I looked at every doctor's visit I've ever had, along with questioning at least one diagnosis from my past.

Groopman told story after story about how once one doctor gives you a diagnosis, most other doctors will shut down their "cognitive reasoning" and never question that diagnosis and will keep trying to treat something you may not have. In some stories, this resulted in the death of a patient. He also talks about how physician lore and influence from drug and device companies perpetuate incorrect diagnoses and treatments.

For a personal example of a bad diagnosis sticking, I was diagnosed with carpel tunnel syndrome by a nurse practitioner who referred me to an orthopedic surgeon, who confirmed the diagnosis and was ready to operate. I then was lucky to meet my friend's cousin, a Harvard Med student, who within moments said "you don't even have the right symptoms for carpel tunnel - you have a pinched nerve in your neck and any surgery to your wrist would just cause you more pain and discomfort". My problem was corrected by a series of chiropractic adjustments - no surgery and now I'm pain free (and have been for years).

One poignant set of examples in the book that really stuck with me was about spinal fusion surgeries - these are very common and are well reimbursed by insurance companies, yet there is little evidence that they cure low back and extremity pain. There is little follow up done by the actual surgeons to see how the procedure impacted quality of life, and when follow up is done and the patient hasn't improved, they are simply told "well, you're one of the people this treatment doesn't help". Basically, if you don't have a spinal tumor or an actual broken back, back surgery probably won't help and will likely make things worse!

Groopman keeps things real by even referencing his own mistakes.

This book isn't a scary book, but rather one that gets you to think more about your own health and teaches you how to communicate with your doctor to help them keep out of the cognitive traps and really question what *else* could be wrong with you.

It is a must read for everyone! Really!

Thank you, Stormy, for recommending this. I wish I had read it years before!

View all my reviews >>

Sun Carolers do it again!

The Sun Carolers did it again this year, touring the campus and delighting our fellow employees! This year was different, though - it was caught on video!

I can't embed this first one, but please check it out: The 12 Bugs of Christmas!

These other two were recorded by Deirdre Straughan and feature "I'll Be Home For Christmas", "Merry Christmas, Happy New Year" (ala Hallelujah chorus), "Carol of the Bells", "Jingle Bells", "Hanukah, Oh, Hanukah" (partial), and "Let it Snow". Enjoy!

'Tis the Season for Giving

This is the time of year that we all get pinged by charities hoping to talk us all into a last minute charitable (and in the US, tax-deductible) donation. Separating the wheat from the chaff is a challenge, but with sites like Charity Navigator, it's easier than ever before.

Then along came Jen Yates, of Cake Wrecks fame, and she's doing the coolest thing: using her massive quantity of blog followers to do GOOD! For 14 days this month, Jen and her husband are selecting a charity to give at least $200 to and asking her minions^H... followers to each give just a dollar to these same charities that she has prescreened for us. It is so inspiring to see how many wells for clean water will be available now, how many children will have meals, how many homes can be built, etc. just due to this super simple plan. Jen's appeals appear at the end of each of her daily wreckports, and are neither preachy nor too pleading.

I've found myself giving a few dollars each day to each of these charities - and am so impressed at how quickly a lot of people just giving a bit can add up so fast! Jen's even made a "round-up" page if you want to catch up on the giving!

In addition to those charities, I've lent my support this season to Second Harvest Food Bank, The Family Giving Tree, Heifer International, West Valley Light Opera, Purdue University (Women in Science & Computer Science funds), and the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

It seems in this day and age, everyone needs a little bit more help to stay afloat. If you can, help out the Cake Wrecks charity drive - even a dollar or two adds up when enough people participate. Where are you giving this season?

Number of women on staff == "Best Place To Work" ?

I've read countless "Best Place to Work" lists over the years, and usually happy to find Sun on those lists (and knowing when it was missing that the people compiling the list obviously asked the wrong questions if they missed a wonderful company like this one).

The latest list I saw today, posted on Brazen Careerist's site, took a different approach - while specifically looking for companies that would be attractive to Gen Y (aka Millennials) - the looked at companies that offered a lot of flexibility. Realizing that nearly every company now-a-days self reports as being very flexible, the authors decided to use the metric of number of women employed being close to at least 50%.The rationalization was that women wouldn't tolerate a company that didn't offer true flexibility.

My first response was, "Cool! Who doesn't want to work with more women?!", and then I remembered that my teams have always been the exception (often with near 50% women, and never an all white team) - not sure why that is, are women just more attracted to security? But I digress...I know my personal experience is not the norm.

Sun wasn't on that list. In fact, only two tech companies (Google & Yahoo) were, and I realized, that's probably because the saturation of women in technology is nowhere near 50%, so even tech companies that are very flexible and have "lots" (as a relative term) of women would not have qualified for this list. What do you think? Should we be using a different metric for gender equality for tech companies? or just hope that the trend reverses and women start joining the tech force in droves?

Sun is a fantastic place to work and very flexible, btw, as recognized by many other lists - and by me :)