Friday, March 9th, is my last day at Sun. I will be moving to Network Appliance to become the Director of Strategic Technology for the Advanced Development Group.

I can't say enough good things about the Open Source Software group here at Sun. It's been a hell of a ride. I have a brilliant staff that I will miss; I've made a ton of friends at Sun and in the open source community; and I've learned so much in such a short period of time my head is still spinning.

But there comes a time when one needs to try something new. I've been at Sun for 11 years. It's time to stretch my legs and seek other pastures. For better or worse, you have not seen the last of me, but I'm afraid that as far as this blog is concerned, it's time to close this particular door.

Go in peace. Sin no more. I'm outta here.

If you don't know what an alethiometer is, you haven't read His Dark Materials, a trilogy by Philip Pullman. But don't worry! Now you don't have to! The movie of the first book, The Golden Compass is currently in production and scheduled for release December 2007. And to make that news even more exciting is the news that the film will star Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

I was wondering how they were going to get around the controversial elements of the book, but now I see how. The children are kidnapped and experimented upon by a "mysterious organization." In the trilogy, the evil "mysterious organization" is the church, though I don't recall Pullman calling out a specific religion.

His Dark Materials was one of my very favorite trilogies. Next Christmas will be a good time at the movies.....

Today is World AIDS Day. Take a minute out today to remember the friends and loved ones we've lost to AIDS.

Each year the Human Rights Campaign publishes their Corporate Equality Index. The index rates American corporations on how they treat gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered employees, customers, and investors. This year, 138 businesses scored 100%, and I'm happy to say that once again, Sun is there at 100%.

Sun has always had a strong record on diversity. It's one of the many reasons why we've been so successful at operating at a global level. When your company supports and encourages diversity, it's easier to open new sites at far-flung places. It also allows you to attract top talent. You don't have to be an LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) employee to appreciate and want to work for a company that respects all employees equally. I'm glad I work for one of those companies.

One thing Sun has done that has been helpful to me and other LGBT employees is establish an employee resource network called GLAF (Gay, Lesbian, and Friends). GLAF is responsible for developing and driving diversity initiatives in Sun, and working with outside groups like HRC. I've been lucky enough to join the GLAF board this year as the Internal Affairs Officer. I'm still working out what my responsibilities are there, but the other board members have been a lot of help so I know it'll be a fun job.

So lots of people are making fun of the term "Web 2.0". Well, at least Nick Douglas over at Valleywag is. I have to admit, the term is becoming rather uncool.

Nevertheless, Techcrunch has an interesting documentary about the Web 2.0 bubble, or lack there-of. Worth watching....

My friend, mentor, and former boss, Lisa Pavey, is the VP of engineering at Tesla Motors, so I've been following them for a while now. This week is their launch, along with a nice article about their roadster in Wired News. Very cool! Nice work, Lisa!

Solaris 10 6/06 (aka "Update 2") has been released! New features include:

• ZFS
• Predictive Self-Healing for x64 and x86 systems
• Sun Update Connection
• IPv6 support for IPFilter
• UDP and TCP performance improvements
• PCI Express support on x86 systems
• RealPlayer
• PostgresSQL database

A huge congratulations to the team for making this happen! Many people don't realize how much time and effort it takes to release an update. People work around the clock and on weekends to pull these things off. It's a tremendous effort and something that couldn't be done without everyone working together as a team. Thank you all.

Technorati Tags: Solaris, ZFS

On June 5th, congress will vote on the Federal Marriage Amendment (FMA). (Not Sun's Fault Management Architecture, to which you should be saying "yes" to. :-)) Nobody has yet explained to me why the institution of marriage is threatened by gays and lesbians marrying. This is simply an act of discrimination, and writing that into our constitution is just unthinkable.

Don't worry about men marrying goats. I'm pretty sure a law extending marriage to gays and lesbians will close up any such loopholes preventing man-goat and man-duck marriages.

Churches won't be required to perform them either. We have civil marriages for city halls to perform, and drive-thru chapels, Elvis impersonators, etc. (So much for the sanctity of "traditional marriage".) These are all red herrings thrown around by right-wing extremists to scare people.

If you're against discrimination, tell your congress person to vote "no" on the FMA. Time is running out and changing the US Constitution is not something to be done lightly.

Karyn Ritter's husband has a company called Doppleganger. Their first product is a virtual nightclub where you can go to hang out, talk with other people online, dance, flirt, and everything else a high-end nightclub has. Karyn showed me an early demo of the lounge, and I have to say it was pretty impressive -- and fun.

Karyn tells me a reporter writing about the site couldn't get anyone in the club to talk to him, not even the robot bartenders. "So, the software is very realistic," I said. "Yup," replied Karyn.

Head on over to http://www.pcdmusiclounge.com/ and check out the action yourself. Tell the Pussycat Dolls Harpster sent cha'.

"The only thing we learn about history is that we don’t learn about history." -- Otto von Habsburg

If the Oscars are the Gay Superbowl, then the Golden Globes must be the Division Playoffs. And although I adore Pink is the New Blog while I'm eating lunch to tell me everything I need to know, Trent points us to Defamer for the funniest low-down on the Golden Globes.

Still, the best moment goes to E! for their pre-show coverage when Isaac Mizrahi asked Hillary Swank, "Now that you're single, do you find yourself dressing more sexy?" Hillary, looking as if she just witnessed a gruesome murder (or Pam Anderson's dress), tried to recover by telling Isaac that she is not, in fact, single, and still working to patch up her marriage with Chad Lowe. We had to back TiVO up 3 times to watch that.

Bad Reporter, a comic strip by Don Asmussen, is, as usual, always funny, always timely, and always dead-on. Now check out Syrianta, where, in the war on Christmas, everything is connected.

I'm not a fan of civil unions. "Separate but equal" has never made sense and has never worked. Still, it's better than what we're going to have in the U.S. any time soon. And, because I don't want to rain on anyone's parade/wedding, congratulations Grainne and Shannon! (Oh, and Elton and David too!)

The Ford Motor Company released a letter yesterday reaffirming their commitment to the LGBT market. The American Family Association, a radical anti-gay organization, was calling for a boycott of Ford because of Ford's policy on non-discrimination and inclusiveness. To summarize Ford's response: Go pound sand.

In this day and age of frightening ultra-conservatism in American, it's very refreshing to see a major corporation such as Ford stand up and say they care about all people, regardless of their race, gender, or sexual orientation. Well, bravo, Ford!

I'm in Dublin this week visiting the JDS team. Forecasting the weather here is worse than in the bay area: The forecast said it was going to rain every day. Well, it's my second day here and nothing but clear blue skies. Not that I'm complaining....

I was, however, able to catch Space Cadets, the new BBC series that sends 4 contestants into space. That's what they think, anyway. They are really in a simulator and only think they are in space. (Actually, one of them is an actor and knows it's really a simulation.) The launch was pretty funny and I think sets the tone for the rest of the series. New drinking game: take a shot everytime the team high-fives themselves. Hopefully that nonsense will end soon as they start to get on each other's nerves trapped in the small capsule. Then the fun begins....

On the plane ride here, I was listening to a podcast interview of Trent, author of Pink is the New Blog. I found it funny and very telling that nobody read his early blogs when they were just about himself. His blog only became wildly popular when he started to talk about everyone else, namely the celebrities. And in that, he succeeded. His blog is very entertaining and always worth a read. I laugh out loud at every single one. It also makes me think about my own blog.... Maybe I need to throw in a few pictures of Britney and K-Fed to make my blog more interesting. Hmmmmm......