Katy Dickinson

PreSEED Mentoring Term

Paul's Halloween mask

Jack-o'-lantern lights, glass squash

Mexican Skeleton Lady

I'm delighted to announce that Sun's new worldwide Engineering-wide PreSEED mentoring program is now accepting applications. PreSEED is a mentoring program aimed at helping Engineering staff in the Member of the Technical Staff job family (grade 5 to 9, MTS-2 to MTS-4 equivalents) who have been getting almost all "Sun Standard" annual performance ratings onto a path which may lead them to higher engagement.

PreSEED and SEED?
One way to think of PreSEED is as a preliminary to the successful SEED Engineering mentoring program. The PreSEED and SEED program take a broad definition of Engineering. PreSEED alumni are welcome to apply to the SEED program. Since 2001, the CTO-sponsored SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. Individual experiences will vary.

Sponsor? Schedule?
Greg Papadopoulos (Sun CTO and EVP) sponsors the PreSEED and SEED worldwide mentoring program. This PreSEED term will run from January - June 2009. Applications will be accepted starting now (Halloween, 31 October 2008). Application materials should be submitted as soon as possible. The application period will close on 14 November 2008 at 12 p.m. (Noon) California Time, or as soon as 100 complete applications are received.

PreSEED's General Selection Criteria:

1. All participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. All annual performance ratings in the last 3 years must be a 2 ("Sun Standard") or better.
4. Manager support is required.

What about GSS?
Global Sales and Service (GSS) worldwide Engineering or technical staff at the principal level (US Grade 10 to 12, or non-US equivalent) or above - by 7 November, please consider applying to the new GSS SEED Mentoring Pilot Program sponsored by Peter Ryan, Sun's Executive Vice President, GSS, and Hal Stern, GSS Distinguished Engineer and Senior Vice President, and 12-time SEED mentor. GSS worldwide Engineering or technical staff with jobs equivalent to MTS-2 to MTS-4, in job grades 5 to 9, are welcome to consider PreSEED. For more, see my blog: October 22, 2008.

Become a Mentor?
Mentors must be the global equivalent of U.S. job grade level 10 (Staff Engineer) through Senior VP. PreSEED Mentors are in grades 10 to 12 only (not yet executive level). SEED and PreSEED Mentors can come from any part of Sun, not just Engineering.

More?
More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 04:27PM Oct 31, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Great Game - Settlers of Catan

Two years ago, I wrote about the delightful Dread Pirate family board game. This is to recommend another excellent game: Settlers of Catan. Settlers was first published in 1995 in Germany by Klaus Teuber, available from Kosmos. My daughter Jessica and her boyfriend Matt started playing it last year, then brought Settlers to family camp in August. Settlers was a big hit, with players from ages ten to fifty having a very good time. During our family's week at the Lair of the Golden Bear, we played Settlers, Dread Pirate, Wheel & Deal, hearts, or poker most nights.

Jessica and Matt gave our son Paul his own Settlers game set for his birthday. We have played it several times after Paul's homework is done. It takes a few games to develop a feel for strategy and rules. John and Paul and I played last night; it took several turns for me to realize I already had enough points to win!

What I like about Settlers is its focus on trading and relationships. In an Interview with Klaus Teuber, the game designer said:

"I was always fascinated by the Vikings and their exploratory journeys. One widely held view of the Vikings is that they were marauding and violent hordes descending on Europe. Another side of the story is that in many places where Vikings settled they actually built progressive and peaceful societies as well as sophisticated trading systems. They were the first European explorers to leave the security of the coast and sail out into the open ocean, which led them to discover and settle Iceland, Greenland and Northern America."

My 16-year-old son Paul particularly enjoys smash-'em-up and shooter video games. For example, he likes the science fiction shooter game "Halo" and a disturbingly fun and popular video game called "Pain". In Pain "Gamers attempt as much damage to themselves as possible by flinging themselves from a rubber-band catapult." Fortunately, Paul also loves "Zoo Tycoon", a business simulation video game. Zoo Tycoon rewards both creative and constructive behavior and wild destructive behavior. Players make money and get awards for building a successful zoo (but once the zoo is built, the tycoon can lock the gates and drop the fences to let the carnivores eat the tourists).

Settlers is a well-designed board game in which there are consequences for smash-'em-up behavior. For example, last night I was slowly building a road from one of my settlements (in a wood, wheat, bricks resource area) to an area on the other side of the board where I could win other kinds of resources (sheep and rocks). Paul intentionally blocked my progress by adding his own road in my path. So, I refused to trade him resources he needed for several turns. Eventually, Paul started offering me very favorable trades in order to reestablish his reputation. I like this game!

Dread Pirate was published in 2003. The Settlers of Catan was published in 1995. Wheel & Deal was published in 1967. More about these and other board games is available on BoardGameGeek. Photos:

Settlers of Catan

Dread Pirate

Wheel & Deal

Images Copyright 2008 Katy Dickinson

Posted at 12:02PM Oct 29, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Cactus Garden Update

The cactus garden I created this summer around WP668, our backyard caboose, is flourishing. It has rained only very briefly in San Jose, California the last six months. Once the rain starts again, I will see how the new planting beds settle in. For now, everyone seems very happy.

This summer, the Silver Torch (Cleistocactus Strausii) lost one of its three spires to rot but the big spire now has a fuzzy white baby. The babies around the Argentine Giant Cordon (Trichocereus Candicans, Echinopsis) have about doubled in size since I planted them in April. The blue and pink Bunny Ears (Opuntia Microdasys) I bought in August looks good against the big boulder; I hope no one will touch it there. Bunny Ears dropped so many glochids (tiny invasive spines) during planting that I had to throw away the gloves I used. It took a week for all of the glochids to work their way out of my skin - yuk! No new growth on the bigger cactuses Boris and Natasha but I hope they will perk up after it rains. Boris is a Golden Barrel Cactus or Echinocactus grusonii. Natasha is an Argentine Saguaro or Trichocereus Terscheckii. Photos:

Cactus bed

WP668 Caboose and Cactus bed

Last Aloe Bloom

Argentine Giant Cordon

Silver Torch baby

Bunny Ears

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 09:38AM Oct 28, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Fall Color in Silicon Valley

California is not famous for its Autumn color. Many plants get confused by what passes for seasons here on the west coast. Instead of the traditional four: Spring-Summer-Autumn-Winter, California has just two: the mostly wet and very dry seasons (sometimes called the mudslide and wildfire seasons). Nonetheless, we do have some plants in the San Francisco Bay Area which make an Autumn effort. The Red Oaks have turned already. Soon, we will see the flaming displays of yellow-orange-red Chinese Pistache leaves, yellow Ginkgo trees, and red Pyracantha berries. We just drove from Palo Alto to San Jose on Highway 280: the new color show is worth seeing! It is not a riot of color, just a colorful protest against the prevailing pallet of grey-green and brown.

My roses are putting on their last display before shutting down with the coming cold. I have eleven rose bushes, including two of my favorite, Chrysler Imperial. Chrysler Imperial is a Hybrid Tea Rose from 1952, one of the first roses used to market a consumer product (the Chrysler Imperial car). The Chrysler Imperial rose starts off as a scarlet bud, then darkens to a rich violet red color as the bloom ages. The flower scent is deep and complex.

Gas prices are dropping with the leaves. During our August 2008 family road trip, we paid prices as high as $4.99/gallon. Last night in San Francisco, gas was for sale at $2.99/gallon. Always pleasant to have some good news!

Red Oak leaves

Red Oak leaves

Red Oak leaves

"Chrysler Imperial" rose

"Chrysler Imperial" rose

"New Day" rose

"Playboy" rose

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 04:25PM Oct 27, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

WP668 Caboose Railings Done

This weekend, we mostly finished creating the stair railings for WP668, our backyard caboose. There is some detail work to be done and the railings need to be painted but what we have looks good and is very sturdy. I also stood in my cactus garden and painted WP668's name on her bay window (finally) since the weather was warm. We still need to add the Western Pacific Railroad decal to the side.

John worked with welders Chris Gremich (CG Designs in San Jose, CA, phone: 408-313-3706) and Adam Stickles (Fusion Welding, 408-849-6636) to shape and assemble the parts out of galvanized steel pipe. Each rail set can be unbolted and removed for painting - the banisters slot into pipes set in concrete in the ground. Photos:

WP668 today:

half done railing

railing removed for finish welding, Adam

stencil on bay window

first paint on stencil

baluster-banister welds close up

Chris grinding pipe

adding balusters: Chris, John, Adam

a few more to go

looking upstairs

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 11:19PM Oct 26, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

WP668 Caboose Railings (half done)

We are half done creating the stair railings for WP668, our backyard caboose. See my 14 October 2008 blog entry for more. The rail and balusters are being created out of galvanized steel pipe. John assisted Chris Gremich (CG Designs in San Jose, CA, phone: 408-313-3706) to shape and assemble the parts. We hope to finish the job this weekend.

WP668 before stair railings

John leveling railing

1st two balusters in

checking spacing

leveling again

2nd railing in

cactus garden view

checking 2nd stair railing height

still needs welding

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 03:25PM Oct 24, 2008 by katysblog in Caboose Project and Other Trains  | 

Arduino Night Pictures: Silicon Valley OpenSolaris User Group

John and I were up until midnight last night at the SVOSUG - Silicon Valley OpenSolaris User Group meeting. The event was held at the historic Sun's Santa Clara Campus Mansion. See my 21 October 2008 blog for more.

The meeting's setting was charming and elegant. Sun's 1913 Mediterranean Revival style Mansion was filled with arts and crafts furniture and geeks showing off and building computer toys. Over 20 people attended and the SVOSUG plans to hold another "Builduino" night in a few months.

Mansion main stairs

Front door

Fireplace

John Plocher's JMRI N-scale train

John Weeks' Marvin Roomba

Poorna Udupi's Sun SPOT car

John Plocher's XyloTiger

Checking out specs

Watching SPOTkin on YouTube

Assembly demo in kitchen

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 01:04PM Oct 24, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

New SEED Term for Global Sales & Service

Peter Ryan, Sun's Executive Vice President, Global Sales and Services (GSS), just sent out the long-awaited announcement for SEED's newest pilot mentoring term. This term was specifically created for worldwide Engineering and Technical staff in the GSS division. Some of the GSS pilot Selection Criteria and Scope are unique to this term; some are the same as for a regular SEED term. Hal Stern, GSS Distinguished Engineer and Senior Vice President, and 12-time SEED mentor is co-sponsoring this pilot term with Peter. Sun's CTO and EVP Greg Papadopoulos has been SEED's executive sponsor since 2001.

GSS Pilot Term Dates
This new SEED Pilot Program will run from January - June 2009. Applications will be accepted starting 27 October 2008. All application materials are due 7 November 2008. Potential program applicants should read and think about the program and talk with their managers between now and when the application forms open on 27 October 2008.

SEED's General Selection Criteria:

1. All Participants are in Engineering.
2. Only regular Sun employees may participate.
3. Superior annual performance ratings are preferred.
4. Manager support is required.

There are additional criteria specific to this term - see the SunWeb GSS SEED term home page for details.

Why should I apply?
The SEED program works with you to increase your value to Sun and your satisfaction with Sun, and thus the likelihood that you will become an even more productive and recognized contributor. By linking you with an appropriate mentor and exposing you to the prominent talent in Sun, the program will help you broaden your skills, and increase your connections to the Engineering community as well as to the rest of Sun. One of the long term effects of SEED should be a larger pool of diverse talent for Sun to draw on for the highest technical and management positions. This should result in a more varied and valuable set of solutions to the difficult problems before us as a company.

In most SEED mentoring terms, over 70% of Mentors are executives: Vice Presidents, Fellows, Distinguished Engineers, Principal Engineers or Directors. (In the 2008-2009 Established Staff term, 84% of the Mentors were executives.) Since 2001, the SEED program has a proven track record of strong diversity, very high satisfaction, high regard by management, and high retention. SEED participants as a group earn more promotions and higher performance ratings than Sun overall. Individual experiences will vary. GSS staff have participated in the regular all-Engineering worldwide SEED mentoring program since 2002.

More?
More information on the SEED worldwide Engineering mentoring program is available at http://research.sun.com/SEED/

Posted at 03:30PM Oct 22, 2008 by katysblog in Mentoring & Other Business  | 

Fish and Flower Kaleidoscope

Just for fun, I took images from my last blog post and tried out the Make Your Own Kaleidoscope! software toy created by Jim "KrazyDad" Bumgardner. I read about the Kaleidoscope tool on Rich Burridge's Weblog of 7 October 2008. If you like Kaleidoscopes, check out The Brewster Kaleidoscope Society.

Kaleidoscope fish A original fish image

Kaleidoscope fish B original fish image

Kaleidoscope fish C original fish image

Kaleidoscope flower A original flower image

Kaleidoscope flower B original flower image

Kaleidoscope flower C original flower image

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 10:54AM Oct 22, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[1]

Photographing Tank Fish

One of our favorite restaurants is Michi Sushi (2220 Winchester Blvd, Campbell, CA). In addition to excellent food and charming friendly staff, Michi's has a big two-sided fish tank. Photographing tank fish is harder than taking pictures of flowers. Flowers hold still and are rarely surrounded by highly reflective surfaces. My only advice is - don't use a flash. It scares the fish and unless you are lucky, the light mostly bounces off the tank. I take many pictures and hope for the best...

Yucca flower with bee

Passion flower

Cactus flower

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 08:23PM Oct 21, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Build Your Network! Come to Arduino Night

This is an open invitation to Arduino Night (buy a kit, build a kit, bring a board): 7:30pm-10:00pm, Thursday, 23 October 2008 at the Sun's Santa Clara Campus historic Mansion (across the road from the Auditorium). If you are in the area and open source or Sun SPOTs (Sun Small Programmable Object Technology) are your passion, this is a great chance to expand your network.

More event information is available in Alan DuBoff's mail: http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/ug-svosug/2008-October/000093.html.

Tiger Xylophone "XyloTiger"

This event is part of the Silicon Valley OSUG (OpenSolaris User Group) meeting. There are 72 OpenSolaris User Groups all over the world. See: OpenSolaris User Groups: Locations & Lists for more.

For one example of a fun Arduino project, see my 1 August 2008 blog entry called "OSCON and ServoBells". Come on Thursday night to see my husband John's improved Arduino xylophone (built from a Toys'R'Us tiger), plus his JMRI controlled portable N-scale model train layout. More on John's projects is on his website under Category:Arduino.

Image Copyright 2008 by John Plocher

Posted at 05:57PM Oct 21, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

Black Box Landscaping

Sun customers who are in the market for a Sun Modular Datacenter (aka a Black Box) are probably more concerned with adding cost-effective instant data center capacity than with landscaping. Rightly so! However, a Black Box has to go somewhere. As a dedicated gardener, for the last six months I have been watching with interest the creation of a handsome landscape setting for the new Black Box now inside of Sun's Menlo Park campus. "MPK" as we call the Sun Menlo Park campus includes one of Sun's two award-winning Executive Briefing Centers ("EBC"). The new Black Box is in the EBC courtyard in MPK.

I have a particular interest in the Black Box because the Technology Advisory Board or TAB, which I manage went on a prototype tour about six months before the product was announced in 2006. It has been exciting to watch that prototype data center in a shipping container turn into a real product.

From the 2006 announcement until April 2007, MPK sometimes got to see a Black Box when its truck came by as part of the Sun Tour. In April 2007, an April Fool prank featured an empty Black Box appearing in the center of MPK's grass amphitheatre. It was set up as an executive playspace for CEO Jonathan Schwartz and CTO Greg Papadopoulos. One of the display boards created for the prank showed a faked photo of what MPK would look like with Black Boxes (including windows) taking over the whole amphitheatre.

In March 2008, the MPK campus was being spruced up with new paint and landscaping. It was clear from the size and space that was left open outside of the EBC that a Black Box was coming our way, so I took some pictures. Then, this summer, MPK finally got its own real Black Box. Photos:

Sun MPK from the air

April Fools 2007, Fake Black Boxes

Mar 08: Space for Black Box

July 2008 - New MPK Black Box

MPK Black Box

Sep 08: SEEDs Visit Black Box

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 05:28PM Oct 21, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  |  Comments[1]

Bells Angels and Bagpipes

On 14 October, I wrote about St. Andrew's Episcopal Church's annual Blessing of the Animals service. St. Andrew's has an amazing choir that sings every Sunday. For special celebrations, St. Andrew's sometimes presents handbells or bagpipes.

English handbell ringing started out around 1700 as a way for change ringers to practice music outside of the church tower. (You can read more about change ringing in Dorothy Sayers' superb mystery The Nine Tailors, with Lord Peter Wimsey.) St. Andrew's handbell choir is called Bells Angels. They play during the service several times a year, most recently two weeks ago.

St. Andrew's hires the Los Gatos - Monte Sereno Police Pipes and Drums marching bagpipe band for events such as the blessing of the tartans service in March 2008. Because Andrew is the patron saint to Scotland, bagpipes are an appropriate instrument in a church named for him. Some photos:

English handbells

Bells Angels in action

English handbells

St. Andrew's Banner

Bagpipes in Church

Marching band

Images Copyright 2008 by Katy Dickinson

Posted at 06:26PM Oct 20, 2008 by katysblog in Church  | 

Tshirt Design

My job includes managing Sun's sponsorship of a few external-to-Sun events, like the American Heart Association's Silicon Valley Heart Walk (see my September 21, 2008 blog entry), and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (see my October 14, 2008 blog entry).

The team usually designs a tshirt as part of event preparation. Tshirts are good advertising and a popular giveaway, plus they make us easy to find in a crowd.

In a big company, some decisions are easy. We don't need to go looking for a tshirt manufacturer because Sun has a preferred vendor. This means that vendor selection, terms, payment, and method of shipment are already sorted out. The event team can focus on other questions like shirt quantity, quality, cost, and design. My event budget tells me how much I can spend. The number of event participants tells me the rough quantity of shirts to order. There are some tradeoffs I can make, such as raising shirt quality in exchange for fewer shirts overall. That leaves mostly decisions about design.

Below are pictures of two sets of Sun tshirts that were very popular. (I know we have a winner when people offer to buy the shirt from our backs!) In both cases, we reused most of the 2007 design for 2008. The 2007 Hopper shirt took months to create because Tanya Jankot and I asked Sun Engineering staff around the world to help us translate and find the fonts to write "Sun Women in Engineering" in English, Hindi, Spanish, Mandarin, Czech, and Russian (the languages of Sun's biggest Engineering centers). I think Sun's 2008 Heart Walk shirt was a hit just because teal is a flattering color for most people.

Some of the tshirt decisions we made in 2008:

• Sun's 2008 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing shirt:
• Kept the black fabric color.
• Provided different base shirts for women and men. Picked a softer fabric and more form-fitting shape for the women's shirts. (We tested several samples until we found the best.) Used standard T-shape men's shirts.
• Updated the OpenSolaris logo and colors (from grey and orange to blues and greens).
• Kept one text/image design and printing size for both women's and men's shirts - significant cost savings from this decision allowed us to make more shirts.
• Picked the brightest colors (lime green and baby blue) from the OpenSolaris "bubbles" logo for the text on the back. The photo below does not show how very bright the printing ink colors are.
• Put the chest logo higher up - more flattering for a woman.
• Sun's 2008 Heart Walk shirt:
• Changed fabric color from baby blue to teal.
• Added a new event logo (designed by Sheri Kaneshiro) on the chest: the Sun logo next to a white heart contining the words "Heart Walk".
• Changed ink color from green to white.
• Kept one design and printing size for all size shirts.

Some ordering tips:

• Ask the vendor to for unprinted sample shirts to feel and try on. This will tell you whether the sizes run small or large. Two of the common comments at the Hopper conference about Sun's shirt were: "Cool design!" and (after we gave the person a shirt): "Oooo, soooft!"
• Always request a pre-production printed physical sample (in both smallest women's size and largest men's size) from the vendor. We have seen the wrong logo used, crooked printing, too-small printing, text too high or too low, and other problems. An electronic image is good for basic design decisions but do request a physical sample before approving production.
• Consider your event population before deciding how many shirts of each size to buy. At Hopper, we need 90% women's sizes. The Heart Walk has more men participating but also little kids, so we order 35% men's large and extra-large and the rest smaller.
• Using one text/image design and printing size for all shirt sizes can yield significant cost savings.
• Once the pre-production sample is right, ask to ship the shirts directly from production to the event.

2007 Grace Hopper

Tanya in 2007 Grace Hopper Tshirt

2008 Grace Hopper

Heart Walk 2007

Greg, Danny at Heart Walk 2008

Paul, Sheri, Pat at Heart Walk 2008

Images Copyright 2007 - 2008 by Katy Dickinson and Sheri Kaneshiro

Posted at 02:21PM Oct 16, 2008 by katysblog in News & Reviews  | 

1st MAGIC Mentee Meeting

Ira Pramanick (of Google), Kristin Yvonne Rozier (of NASA), and I visited Girls' Middle School yesterday to kick off the MAGIC mentoring pilot term. Ira, Kristin, and I are three of the five member MAGIC core team. We have been working this last year to set up the MAGIC program and test it out in the GMS pilot.

Yesterday, we met with the first ten GMS girls to sign up as MAGIC mentees. We distributed MAGIC pencils and business cards and played a game to introduce ourselves. The girls are a mixed group, between 6th, 7th, and 8th grades. This was their first chance to ask questions and for us to meet them together. The girls will start meeting with their new mentors next month.

Here is MAGIC's core team:

Dr Ira Pramanick

Katy Dickinson

Foz Saeed

Dr Kristin Rozier

Meenakshi Kaul-Basu

Posted at 10:08AM Oct 16, 2008 by katysblog in Hopper - Anita Borg Institute  |  Comments[1]