Wednesday Jun 18, 2008
About a year and a half ago, as part of my "research" for a presentation I was writing for someone else, I created an avatar in Second Life. That's about all I did, as I couldn't access Second Life from behind the company firewall, and I certainly don't have much "free time" to go mucking around in virtual worlds. I barely have enough time to muck around in the real one.
But last weekend, as part of another research project, I retrieved my long-forgotten Second Life login, password and avatar name (which I'm not going to share here) and logged in. I found myself on Orientation Island. I thought it was pretty cool, until I'd been there about 15 seconds and other avatars began hitting on me.
Being a polite person in real life, I couldn't quite bring myself to tell one particularly persistent guy to bug off. So I just didn't answer him, even as he kept IMing me repeatedly (in an IM full of misspellings) about "how Second Life allows you do do things you wouldn't normally do in real life." Yeah, like tell you to BUG OFF, I wanted to shout. Can't you see I'm trying to learn how to pick up a torch? Then Second Life crashed my aging PC, so I didn't have to worry about it.
I know Second Life has its uses, but my introduction to it was somewhat less than positive. So it's great that there are people trying to set up alternatives, especially for kids. For example, this Friday, the Immersive Education Initiative will
launch the Education Grid with an array of Sun Project Wonderland virtual world
servers. The Education Grid is designed to be a place where educators can conduct classes and meetings. They can also use the Education Grid to build custom virtual learning
worlds, simulations, and learning games. You can get more information on Kevin Roebuck's blog, but here's the basic info:
WHAT: Education Grid launches with Project Wonderland
WHEN: Friday June 20th, 2008 at 4pm EST
WHERE: The event starts on the Sun Microsystems island in Second
Life* and then moves into the Education Grid's Wonderland virtual worlds. Sun island
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sun%20Microsystems%201/127/165/71
I'm going to check it out. Maybe I'll see you there. Just don't hit on me, because I think I've not only figured how to make my avatar pick up a torch, but also how to whack someone over the head with it.
* Update: In case you were wondering, Kevin Roebuck tells me that Friday's event starts in Second Life because most attendees will be familiar with it. "We'll give them instructions and a quick intro and then send
them off to the Wonderland servers to log-in and visit," he says. "Now that we have Wonderland servers up and running, we won't use it
again."
Thursday Jun 12, 2008
I belong to a group of women writers. Once a month, we meet at someone's house to eat, drink wine, and talk about "the craft." We try not to discuss "the industry," but inevitably, the talk turns to marketing and publishing, and how horrible the situation is. (Then we drink more wine.) This past Sunday, one of the writers announced, "No one reads anymore!" I protested vociferously, but was drowned out by a chorus of agreement.
So let me say it again to you, my captive audience: I think people ARE reading. How else do you explain the popularity of book groups, and conferences like Book Group Expo dedicated specifically to people in book groups? How do you explain the fact that every week, I get an invitation to a new book-related social networking site? I now have my lists on GoodReads and Shelfari, to give a few examples; I've gotten to the point where I can't even keep my virtual bookshelves up to date. How do you explain the fact that a site like Red Room gets investor funding? (Read this article on Red Room about "The Future of the Book" for a discussion about books and technology.)
There's something else I wanted to tell my writers' group. From the time our children were blastocysts, almost every mother I know has been inundated with the importance of reading to her child. My niece has belonged to a book-of-the-month club since she was about 3 (she even picked out her own books). I could swear to you that I remember reading a suggestion that I read to my son while he was in the womb as a way to get him used to the sound. I didn't do that, but I did read to him from about the time he was born. He's now almost 3, and yes, I was thrilled beyond words when one of his preschool teachers termed him "the class bookworm."
My son at 15 months, reading all the best parts.
He also likes to watch trains on YouTube, but he still loves his books. I have now read Where's the Poop more times than I would like to count.
Granted, I will admit that I'm part of an overly educated demographic. You could call our kids "Generation 529," so concerned are we about getting our kids into (and being able to pay for) good colleges. When I lived in San Francisco, I belonged to a mothers' group where women were frantic about getting on preschool lists before their children were actually born. Every family I know has shelves of children's books in their home. I realize, of course, that many families are not so fortunate.
There seems to be a disconnect between the dire predictions about American education, and the fact that many colleges have to turn away qualified applicants. Stanford received 24,000 applications for its Class of 2011--a record high (but accepted 10.3%--a record low). A "a significant fraction" of those accepted, says President John Hennessy, are "prepared to do Stanford-caliber study." Test scores and GPAs are higher than ever.
How can that be, if no one's reading? I'm curious to know what you think. Like I said, I realize that I'm part of a particular demographic, and that the picture isn't so rosy for a large segment of the population. How can we instill a love of reading in all children, regardless of income? And I don't think the answer is more computers in schools or access to the Internet. But we shouldn't throw up our hands and say "no one is reading," either.
It's not going to stop writers from writing, anyway.
Thursday Jun 05, 2008
Just signed up for the BlogHer '08 Conference, July 18-20, in San Francisco. I'm pretty psyched. I attended the Web 2.0 conference in April (seems like it was just yesterday), and really enjoyed it, but women were a definite minority.
Are you a student, or do you know a student who would like to attend? Because students get a big discount on conference passes.
Monday May 19, 2008
First Burma, now China. And with this latest disaster, the stories that
break every parent's heart: schools buried under tons of rubble, entire
families lost. I just read a CNN story
about the tragedy at Juyuan Middle School, where hundreds of kids are
still trapped. The sound of firecrackers fills the air each time a body
is found; it's a Chinese tradition to ward off evil spirits.
A reporter says he hears firecrackers every five or ten minutes.
I
think of China's one-child policy, and I almost can't read any more
descriptions of grieving parents hurling themselves on their child's
body.
The truth of the matter, which a lot of people don't talk
about, is that when you have a child after miscarriage and infertility,
one of the things that makes you want to have another child is the fear
that something will happen to the first. Not that the second child
could make up for the loss of the first. Nothing could. (Note: I didn't
say that these feelings made sense.
That's why another word for these feeling is "neuroses.") In fact, one
of the feelings you have to manage, as the parent of a "singleton"
(especially a singleton who almost didn't happen in the first place) is
fear. Because if you don't find a way to manage the fear, you'll live
your life like you're walking around with a gun to your head.
So in an effort to do something
other than drive myself crazy and make donations to disaster relief
(which I've done), I asked my brother the architect a few questions.
Cynthia: So
why did all those schools and buildings collapse? Other than the
magnitude of the quake. Don't they have building codes in China? Give
me your architect's opinion and I'll put it on my blog. [Editor's
note: If this sounds a bit like a sisterly demand, remember that this
is the brother whom I once threatened, in my diary, to sue for ruining
my childhood.]
Cynthia's Brother: The media is saying it's because of the vast right-wing conspiracy. Just kidding. Don't put that on your blog.
Seriously, I don't know enough about the facts to offer any type of opinion. [Editor's note: As you can see, my brother does not live in Silicon Valley.]
It could be due to the amplitude of the quake, just as much as the
magnitude. Amplitude is the measure of the quakes wavelength. Imagine
ripples across a pond. Either they come in big rolling waves, or short
frequent ripples. A building has amplitude also. If the amplitude of
the building matches that of the quake, it's bad news. Thats what
happened in Mexico City back in the 80s when that big quake hit, and
why there were so many failures of a certain building type, such as
newer 3-to-8-story apartment buildings, while a 150-year-old cathedral
right next door was left undamaged. Sometimes it's just bad luck.
Cynthia: OK. But I don't understand how a building can have amplitude? (Sorry, English major here.)
Cynthia's Brother: A
building is either built extremely rigid, or designed to flex. It
depends on a lot on the structural system used. Imagine a Bundt cake
taken out of the mold. One cake is Jello, the other is regular flour
cake. Then you shake the plate it's sitting on. The Jello one wobbles
(at a certain frequency/amplitude), the other one stays relatively
rigid.
Cynthia: Which is better? The one designed to flex (Jello), right?
Cynthia's Brother: You
want the building to flex to a certain point, but again, you don't want
the amplitude of the building to match that of the quake. You have to
shake pretty hard to get the flour cake to fall off the plate, but if
you get the jello one going just right, it will wobble-roll right off.
There's
one state-of-the-art high rise being built, I think in Taiwan, where
they are placing a giant suspended counter weight at the top of the
building to counter the oscillation of the quake.
A structural
engineer would really be able to give you better information. If you'd
like I can put you in touch with my structural engineer and she could
fill in the blanks. [Editor's note: This is loving brotherly code for "I'm busy, sis, get back to work."]
Cynthia: Thanks, dear brother. (OK, I really didn't say that. But I should have.)
So
now I understand the science of earthquakes and building a little bit
better. I still don't understand the why. Not "why are there
earthquakes?" I get the stuff about tectonic plates and all that. I
don't understand the why of children buried under earthquakes. The why
of firecrackers.
(Note: This article is cross-posted from my personal blog.)
Monday May 12, 2008
Twenty university and high school students got a tour of the JavaOne show floor last week with James Gosling, the Father of Java. Read all about it On the Record.
Two of the students had driven 17 hours to attend the show. That's dedication!
Monday May 12, 2008
First Burma, now China. I logged on this morning to devastating news about the 7.9-magnitude earthquake that hit central China. Especially heartbreaking to this mom is the news about the 900 students buried under rubble.
Larry Nelson, Sun's Director of Global Community Development, directed me to the Sun Microsystems Foundation's blog and the Sun online disaster relief drive. I was able to go online and instantly donate clean drinking water. (I'll probably also make a donation to the International Red Cross.)
Doesn't feel like I'm doing enough, but it's something.
Thursday Mar 06, 2008
Boy, if that title doesn't grab your attention, nothing will. Yes, after a looooong hiatus (in blogosphere terms), I'm baaaaaaccck. All four of my readers will be totally psyched. The reason I haven't posted in a while is because I was working on Sun's 2008 Worldwide Education & Research Conference (also known in these parts as the WWERC), which was last week in San Francisco. For three months, this event consumed almost all of my free time.
But it was worth it. Especially when Scott McNealy offered me potty training tips.
First, the WWERC. One of the coolest things about this event was that we had five of our Campus Ambassadors acting as "roving reporters." (Campus Ambassador are students we've hired to talk to their fellow students about Sun technology on campus.) These very nice young gentlemen not only blogged about the event, but they also took pictures and video. Much better pictures than I did, as I'll prove in a moment. (This blog is all about anticipation.) Check out their WWERC group blog. Or you can read their individual blogs: there's Ezequiel Singer from Argentina; Greg Corbin from the U.S.; Kumar Abhishek from India; Vincent Ding from China; and Sergey Pisarenko from Sweden. Give them some blog-love, folks.
Here they are with Sun Chairman Scott McNealy at our press conference on Wednesday, February 27. (At this point, Scott had only hinted at his potty training tips. He had not yet dispensed his wisdom.)
Sun Campus Ambassadors with Scott McNealy
I also got a chance to meet a real-life astronaut, Kathryn Sullivan. She was the first American woman to walk in space. Her NASA bio makes me feel like a complete slacker. Dr. Sullivan now serves as Director for The Ohio State University's Battelle Center for Mathematics and Science Education Policy and as a volunteer science advisor to the COSI Columbus, an interactive science center in Columbus, Ohio.
So it was two days chock-full of interesting keynotes. Barry Libert, author of We Are Smarter Than Me, talked about building communities. Neil Howe, author of Millenials Rising, talked about the new generation of students. I found out during Howe's presentation that I'm not a Baby Boomer. I'm actually part of Generation X. That's a relief.
During the various keynotes, I tried to take pictures with my Blackberry. That was a disaster, photographically speaking. Here's my career-limiting photo of my boss (actually my boss' boss), Joe Hartley, Sun VP of Global Government, Education and Healthcare:
And here's the photo taken by the professional photographer hired by our PR person:
Yeah. I don't think any paparazzi are losing any sleep. Now, guess the identities of these three Sun executives (without mocking my blog layout skills, thankyouverymuch):
Yeah, that last one is Scott McNealy, Sun's founder and chairman. Here, for comparison, is the professional photo:
I think he's about to announce the collaboration agreement between Sun and China's Ministry of Education.
So, speaking of Scott...what about those potty training tips? So on the day of his keynote at the WWERC, I go to meet Scott and his PR person in the lobby of the Westin St. Francis to escort them to a customer meeting and then make sure they get to the main ballroom where Scott's giving his speech. (I'm sure he could have found it himself, but I get a little nervous/controlling when it comes to executives and big events, knowing as I do the truth of Murphy's Law.) We're walking down the hall when I decide to make small talk.
"How are the kids?" I ask, knowing that Scott, impressively, has four. I wonder if he sleeps.
"They're great."
"I have a two-and-a-half-year-old," I volunteer.
He stops in his tracks. "Have you started potty training?"
"Uh, no."
"Let me know when you do. I potty trained my youngest in one day."
Later, as I'm walking him to another meeting, he does tell me the story. And then swears me to secrecy. (Sorry! Sorry! If he reads this blog and says it's OK to tell you, I will!) I can tell you that it was both creative and effective, and involved the Great Outdoors. Let me just say this: kids learn fast.
And maybe that was the message of this conference. College students today do learn fast when it comes to the latest technology (as hopefully most of them are beyond the potty training stage), and the great thing is that they're using it to connect with each other and build communities. As our Argentinian Campus Ambassador, Ezequiel Singer, said, "Any time I have a question, I can put it out to the community of 500 campus ambassadors, and I'll get an answer right away. Somewhere in the world, a Sun campus ambassador is awake!"
Not to be all corny, but that really is the power of communities.
Friday Nov 30, 2007
Wow. This article in Campus Technology is a bummer.
Women are falling further behind in information technology and computer
science, according to a new report released by the National Center for
Women & Information Technology (NCWIT). The study, the NCWIT
Scorecard, compiled data on girls and women in computer science and IT
as students at the K-12 and post-secondary levels, as well as women
working as professionals in IT and as faculty in computer science in
higher education. It painted a fairly bleak picture of the situation in
the United States, where women make up the drastic minority of
participants in science- and technology-related studies and where that
minority shrinks further the higher one looks up the academic and
corporate ladder.
The sad thing is that, according to the article and the study, girls in the K-12 grades actually have an advantage in terms of match and engineering coursework, but:
...only 1 percent
of females taking the SATs in 2006 indicated an interest in pursuing
computer and information sciences as an intended major.
If we're worried about our competitiveness in math and science, it seems to me that we should be putting some effort toward encouraging a demographic that makes up "about 60 percent of all degrees awarded by colleges and universities in the United States in the 2005/2006 school year."
My own experience with math class might illustrate the problem. A reader (and writer) from a very young age, somehow I got the message that I was "bad in math." I don't think it was from my mom, who was actually good in math and science. Anyway, imagine my shock when, during my senior year, I got an A in Calculus. Why? I had a good teacher. Hmm.
Bottom line: If we in the high-tech industry are looking for innovative minds, we can't look for them in one gender. But we have to start looking early.
Tuesday Nov 27, 2007
The Ohio Education Assocation recently warned teachers not to join MySpace or Facebook, and even suggested that teachers take down existing profiles, reports eSchool News. The teacher's union sent educators a memo last month advising members "...not to join [these sites], and for existing
users to complete the steps involved in removing their profiles. While this advice might seem extreme, the dangers of
participating in these two sites outweigh the benefits."
Well, yeah, this advice does seem extreme. Until you read a little further. It turns out that the Columbus Dispatch found some teacher MySpace profiles that give new meaning to the phrase, "career-limiting move" (or CLM, as we like to call it). The profile of one woman says that she's "taken drugs and likes to party." Others...well, I don't really want to quote them on a blog owned by my employer.
These teachers (if they really are teachers, and I certainly don't think they're representative of most educators) seemed to have failed the main principle of Social Networking Sites 101: when it comes to Web 2.0, there is no longer any separation between your personal life and your professional life.
I'll cite my own experience with Facebook. When I first joined, I thought it was a cool way to keep friends and family up to date on what I was doing, as well as to promote the books that I've written in my "other" (personal) life and link to my personal blog. But then one of my co-workers asked to add me as a friend. And then another. And soon I realized that I had to make a choice between sharing personal information that defines who I really am (and what I care about), and protecting some of that information from people who (let's be honest) might use it against me.
We all want to be known for who we really are--or at least, for who we'd like people to think we are. But we may not want to be known for all of who we really are, by everybody. Social networking sites force us to make some decisions about our privacy. Especially if we're teachers, and we have kids looking up to us.
Monday Nov 05, 2007
SunGard Higher Education, one of the biggest software vendors in higher education, just announced the creation of a state-of-the-art Unified Digital
Campus Test Center (UDC Test Center) to simulate customers’ real-world
technology environments and use of the Banner Unified Digital Campus. SunGard selected
Dell and Sun Microsystems to help establish the reference platforms that will be
used to optimize the applications, technology configurations, and
hardware associated with the Banner Unified Digital Campus and to help
deliver the lowest possible total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers.
This is great news,
because it means that SunGard's applications will be tested, tuned and
optimized on Sun
before being released to customers, thereby not only speeding time to
deployment, but also ensuring optimized configurations for higher education customers. Good stuff.
Friday Oct 19, 2007
Sun and several other companies have donated more than $420 million in hardware and software to the University of Cincinnati. It's the largest donation in the school's history.
The donation was made by Partners for the Advancement of Collaborative Engineering Education (PACE). It will fund a new program combining UC's College of Engineering and its College of Design, Art, Architecture and Planning. Possible projects include the design of new brake systems for hybrid cars. Cool.
Tuesday Oct 09, 2007
Yesterday, Sun and several leading libraries announced the formation of the Sun Preservation and Archiving Special Interest Group (PASIG). Founding members include The Alberta Library, The
British Library, Johns Hopkins University, University of Oxford,
Stanford University and The Texas Digital Library.
Why is this group so important? Let me bring it home to you. Since my son's birth in 2005, my husband has probably amassed several gigabytes of digital photos on his computer. Given my spouse's questionable filing skills, if I wanted to find a particular photo, I would have no idea where to start. And God forbid that something ever happen to that hard drive. I know he backs it up regularly, but still.
Now that's just a personal archive, of no interest to anyone but my immediate family. My father, however, was a prominent architect in 1960s and 1970s San Diego (as was my grandfather in the early part of the century).
My father, Richard George Wheeler (left), in 1965. Photo courtesy of ModernSanDiego.com.
Believe it or not, my mother occasionally gets requests from academics to look at his drawings and papers. Which are all stuck in drawers and closets throughout her house.
The house where I grew up, circa 1960. Photo courtesy of ModernSanDiego.com.
How should we preserve these materials for students and researchers who might one day want to study early- or mid-20th century California architecture? (We probably need to donate them to a member of the PASIG, for one thing.)
Circle Arts Theater, 1961 (demolished). Photo courtesy of ModernSanDiego.com.
This is the challenge faced by libraries around the world. Even content saved to digital format decays, hence the piquant term "bit rot." The University of Oxford is trying to figure how to manage a million 19th-century books digitized the Bodleian Library as part of the Google Books Library Project. To preserve materials like this for generations to come, they're using a digital asset management system (DAMS) collection based on Sun's storage technologies.
As a graduate student in creative writing, I once took a class on the origins of the novel. Our professor assigned us a project where we actually had to visit the library (in person!) to do research from original source materials. I remember the thrill of holding a 150-year-old book in my hands. I also remember how exciting it was when I discovered that I could look at original books at libraries on the other side of the world.
So while "preservation and archiving" may sound like a less than glamourous topic, it couldn't be more important. Whether it's that snapshot of a son's first bath, or the original plans for the house a father designed for himself in 1960, or that war footage that Ken Burns included in his amazing documentary "THE WAR," we need ways to preserve our history, both personal and shared.
Because, in the end, it's the record of what we experience, what we think, and what we believe. It's the record of who we are.
Tuesday Oct 02, 2007
I really enjoyed the recent opinion piece by Terry Calhoun, "Strained Relations: Reconciling Software Incompatibilities," in a recent issue of Campus Technology. In it, Calhoun—who is Director of Communications and Publications for the Society of College and University Planning (SCUP)—talks about the document incompatibility issues he's faced when dealing with co-workers who have updated to Windows Vista.
These problems led him to think of "IT functionalities as having personalities." (Yup. I've often thought that my PC is possessed.) For example:
- Firefox is "kind of like a...very intelligent lover, who brings me useful and interesting things to read, look at, and think about."
- AIM is "like a pushy, blowhard second cousin who provides some kind of useful
service for me, but is always getting in my face wanting more
recognition for it and always trying to find some way to get paid for
how he helps me out."
- Thunderbird is "like a male secretary who is, on the face of it, a tough, strong guy, with bulging muscles...But he has a low tolerance for stress."
- Excel is "like a work colleague whose perspective on the things we have
to do together is so different from mine that I actually avoid working
with him if at all possible."
Boy, do I relate to that. I think of Excel—or StarOffice Calc, which we use here at Sun—as the colleague from whom I run for fear he's going to corner me to talk about his Star Wars memorabilia collection. (Before you get mad, let me just say that I have many friends [OK, two] who are into Star Wars, one of whom writes a very funny
blog about the "soft, furry underbelly of geek culture." But I was an English major. I don't do math. I don't even do budgets.)
Back to Calhoun's article. He saves his best for Word, to whom he has been "unhappily married" for years: "I simply have to live with Word, even though she seems to not care very much about me." Sounds like Word comes from the same family as the ISP I use for my personal Web site.
Calhoun goes on to describe the specter of students sharing incompatible files with their professors. This made me flashback to my senior year of college, when I borrowed a friend's IBM PC to write my honors essay. These were the days of floppy disks that stored, oh, maybe 3KB. I didn't realize their...um...storage limitations. And well, I ended up having to tell my professor that, essentially, the computer ate my homework. So I'm imaging legions of clever students buying themselves a little more time on that term paper using the "I-sent-it-to-you-it's-not-my-fault-you-can't-open-it" excuse. Fun times ahead.
I haven't seen any of the dreaded ".docx" files he mentions, nor had
any issues sharing Word files from people using Vista—yet. Here at Sun,
we use StarOffice,
and I haven't had any real problems sending people files in OpenOffice
format (.ods) or opening .doc or .xls files. But maybe that's going to
change as more people start to use Vista.
To stretch Calhoun's metaphor a little further, that could be one uncomfortable family dinner.
Wednesday Sep 12, 2007
Breaking news: In a press release and audiocast, Microsoft and Sun today announced that Sun has signed on as a Windows
Server OEM. Sun and Microsoft are also going to collaborate to further
enable deployment of Windows Server on Sun x64 systems.
Here's what John Fowler, EVP of Sun's Systems Group, says it means for Sun:
"Sun is now a single source for today's leading operating systems -
Solaris and Windows - on the industry's most innovative x64 systems and
storage products. Customers can now take advantage of the
virtualization benefits of Windows and Solaris on Sun's energy
efficient x64 systems. Microsoft's recognition of our x64
systems and storage systems is a testament to the superior system
design at the heart of our product portfolio."
Wow. Still digesting this. Stay tuned.
Thursday Aug 30, 2007
Nice story today on Sun.com. Groups of high school students recently visited Sun campuses in Menlo Park, California, and Somerset, N.J. through Project Open Doors.
I almost got a little choked up reading some of the comments from students. One said, "Today's given me insight — [you can] actually make a living at doing what you enjoy."
Added another student from Oakland, "It's given me ideas — I could possibly do something like this, with a
good environment like this."
Project Open Doors started four years ago in Sao Paulo, when Sun employees in Brazil opened the company's facilities after hours to young people from poor communities.
Just goes to show you that we don't always need fancy technology to help young people learn. Sometimes we just have to clear some time on our calendars, and open our doors.
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Sure, there's soft focus, but this is ridiculous.
Is he standing on that pitcher of water?
If only he had held still for oh, 5 minutes, this would have been a good action shot.
