I've been trying to update the various parts of the community in which
I participate about the OGB community reorganization. This is a big
deal we are embarking on, and the OGB has to be out there in the
community educating people about the changes we are implementing on the
community's behalf. I've been sending notes to opensolaris-announce,
ogb-discuss, advocacy-discuss, and i18n-discuss. Here is the latest I sent tonight. The entire process is open, and all the documentation is on the OGB's site. Sign up to ogb-discuss to participate.
Friday Aug 29, 2008
NetBeans will be featured at Tokyo2Point0 Monday night. Stop by if you are in the area. Sun Japan engineer Masaki Katakai
will lead off talking about building Web apps with the open source IDE,
and then there will be a talk about Lifestream replacing the blog
(ouch, that may hit close to home for me). Some
food and drink mixed in, too. Should be fun. It will be good to hear about NetBeans again since I used to do communications for those guys more than four years ago now. Interesting how NetBeans really took off after I left! :) Anyway. Hopefully in the future we can get OpenSolaris presenting at Tokyo2Point0 as well. Such opportunity all around us now with all of these communities. One of the things I really like probing is how disparate communities can get together and collaborate, or at least meet and exchange ideas and opinions. So, not only are we learning how to cross firewalls and language/cultural barriers, but we ought to be crossing community lines as well. This happens quite naturally on all of the projects we are involved with, of course, but it's also an interesting area to explore more actively as well.
I almost sat in this puddle tonight. It's only water, of course, so it would be harmless. Well, I assume it's only water. But anyway. Can you imagine sitting in a little puddle of blood? Now, that's a great shot, Jon.
Wednesday Aug 27, 2008
Nice to see the front page of opensolaris.org evolving with fresh content. We've long talked about doing community and technology profiles on the front page of the site, so now that we are actually doing them I'm sure they will grow in scope and frequency. To see upcoming profiles and suggest ideas for new content features, go to website-discuss.
The OGB's community reorganization and simplification process is progressing. See the roles/groups proposal here (approved), and the group creation process here (draft), and membership process here
(draft). We are just picking off pieces and flushing them out on list
and in meetings. Eventually, we'll have to bring all these documents
together into one document and update the Constitution. OGB reorg tag on this blog right here.
Sunday Aug 24, 2008
I found this house getting ripped apart in the neighborhood today, and I remembered the many times I did the same thing. Demolition is fun. The first thing you realize when you plow into a house with a bulldozer or trencher is just how flimsy wood frame residential construction is. This machine below is very small and light weight (and probably pretty convenient in tight spaces), but it has no problem pulling this house down. I had a 15-ton Cat track loader, substantially stronger than this back hoe, and I could just drive through most houses with no resistance at all -- that`t not recommended if the house has a basement, though, because you`re going right to the bottom and you won`t get out. Anyway, the shocking part of this is that even a moderate size tree takes real work to remove properly, but houses splinter like firewood kindling.
These semi dudes are amazingly loud. Go out in the woods and immerse yourself in these guys and you can put yourself in a meditative trance. They don't live very long, but you certainly know they are around. Summer in Japan.
My wife has some relatives who have been in the sake business for a 150 years in Nagano. We got these bottles as a gift while out in Kijima last week. Very nice stuff. It took me a while to take these photos, though. These images are the only two to survive the other 50 I shot and deleted. I can`t shoot food, I guess. It`s hard. I wish my grandfather were here. Back in New York City, my mom`s father, Arthur Palmer, use to be the chief photographer at Gourmet Magazine. He shot a lot of food. I`m sure he could have put out better images than these. That was back 50 years ago or so. I wonder if he got to eat the food after he took the pictures? I`m drinking this sake right now ...
Intel Dave (otherwise known as Dave Stewart) posted a new video talking about making OpenSolaris "really sing" on the new Xeon processor coming out. Cool.
"America and China should enjoy their medals -- but we should each also reflect on how the other team got so many. " -- Thomas Friedman, New York Times.
Friedman`s column focuses on what the Chinese and Americans can learn
from each other, which is a lot on both sides, but the best quote in
the article is this one right here: "Walking through the Olympic
Village the other day, here’s what struck me most: the Russian team all
looks Russian; the African team all looks African; the Chinese team all
looks Chinese; and the American team looks like all of them." That's
never been so clear to me as it is now. And I bet the "looks" bit Friedman
cites as diversity also extends to behavior, perspective, and thought processes as well.
A little Kijima tonight in extreme black and white ...
Saturday Aug 23, 2008
"Loyalty comes easiest to people who have been down themselves, and who had to rely on others in their own moments of need." -- David Brooks, Hoping It's Biden.
Interesting. I hadn't thought of it quite that way. But I agree. 100%.
And I'd also add that when you are down or challenged in some way you
really experience the distinction between true friends and those who
have been using you all along. Things get clear jet fast. Anyway, I
found this Brooks column on Biden enlightening. I know a lot about the
senator, but I didn't know he was a stutterer when he was a kid. I can
relate. And for me to relate to a politician is remarkably rare. Biden
is a bit of a hot head, but he seems much more genuine than Obama.
Friday Aug 22, 2008
Alan posted a test version of the new opensolaris.org authentication
application. He said he´s "particularly interested to see if anyone can hack
the site and/or find any security flaws" so go pound on it and let us
know what you find.
Thursday Aug 21, 2008
I was recently invited to participate in the Sun Campus Ambassador Program. Check out their community website. I just updated my page as well and hope to communicate with students around the world who are involved with the OpenSolaris community. Cool.
Wednesday Aug 20, 2008
The first OpenSolaris Storage Summit will be held in Santa Clara, California, on September 21. Stop by and participate.
Sun published the Tech Days 2008-2009 Schedule
recently. The tour will going to 13 cities, so check the dates and stop
by. There will be plenty of ways to learn about and get involved with
multiple technologies and communities. I'll be at the Tokyo event in
December for sure.
Tuesday Aug 19, 2008
Nice time last week out in the mountains of Kijima not too
far from the Sea of Japan on the west coast. Lots of bright blue skies,
extreme heat, crazy rain, power failures, breezy cool fog, bright moons bathing hot springs, and
sunflowers overlooking millions of acres of rice fields. The air smells nicer than Tokyo, too.
Updated to build 95 today. Quick. Easy. No problems. Very nice. Give it a try.
The Getting Started with OpenSolaris 2008.05 guide is now published in 10 languages. See the announcement from Ikuko Kagaya in Japan.
It's also great to see that the community contributed to the
translations as well. These guides are about 100 pages long, so that's
a lot of user content moving out there into a bunch of new languages. Excellent.
Here's a little chat I did with Max Alt of Intel while we met at the
OpenSolaris Developer Conference in Prague a bit back. You can also find a conversation with Intel Dave and Jeff Cheeney on the Intel project page. Lots of Intel going on here lately.
Special thanks to Deirdre Straughan for taping these interviews.
11:30 mins
iPod version also availableSpecial thanks to Deirdre Straughan for taping these interviews.
Tuesday Aug 12, 2008
On vacation. No computer. No blog. No email. No phone. Just mountains and some clean air.
Hisayoshi Kato, Akihito Fujii, and I went to see Google and Korean Internet Ventures present at tonight's Tokyo2point0 event in Roppongi. Had a great time. Met dozens of new people from around the world doing Web 2.0 development. Very cool. Here are some images.
Monday Aug 11, 2008
A conversation with Bob Woodruff, ABC News:
"The Chinese are everywhere, they are engaged." -- Charlie Rose,
commenting on Bob Woodruff's documentary about the Chinese in Angola,
Brazil, and Cambodia (among other regions) in a massive attempt to
secure access to resources.
In real estate it's all about location, location, location. And as a result, the real value is in the land. Well, here's a shot of an old farm stuffed in the woods about 40 minutes outside Tokyo. This is very common. The house itself holds very little value, as you can see, but the land the house sits on is another story altogether. Most of the property is outside my camera rage, but I'd say there is enough space to fit about 12 to 15 new houses if you rip out the existing structure, the crops, and some of the surrounding woods. And at 40 minutes outside Tokyo, that makes this land worth millions. Many millions, actually. So, do you sell? Or keep the property in the family? The answer is not as obvious as you may think.
Sunday Aug 10, 2008
Today we went to a big park not too far away from here. It's called
kodomonokuni, which means country of children. It's huge. Probably a
few hundred acres of trees and sprawling land with lovely paths,
swimming pools, ponds, and areas for kids to play on swings and slides
and stuff like that. See some images here, here, and here. Very nice place. And since it's right around the corner, we'll have to go back again.
But
as we walked around the outside of the park, I couldn't help notice
these mysterious doors below. I mean, how could you not notice them, my goodness.
Each one set slightly off the road, each one leading into a hill. How
curious. Who would build such
things? And when were they built? Are they connected underground?
What's inside? Why the locks?
After seeing about a dozen doors, I came to the obvious
conclusion that the government was probably here before we were. But
there were no
signs or anything, so I had my wife ask at the front desk. Sure enough, the Japanese military used to manufacture bombs nearby and
store them underground here in this facility. Then after the war, the
American military took it over and used it for similar purposes and
finally gave the land back to the Japanese in the mid 1960s. Now it's a
beautiful park. But the doors remain, and that drew my interest.
Saturday Aug 09, 2008
Went to the Tokyo Linux User Group nomikai tonight. As always, I met a bunch of new guys. Very cool.
All TLUG pics here.
All TLUG pics here.
This blog copyright 2008 by jimgris
