Human Telemetry: Tony Kay: training, working, coding

What a start to the day. Planned on being a roadie with a quick lap of Morgul Bismarck before starting work. Quick being a relative term here in Boulder, I got overtaken by a pensioner doing Flagstaff a few days ago. Morgul Bismarck, which passes very close to Sun's Broomfield campus, was made famous by the old Coors cycle series and also features as Day 1 of "The Hell of The West" race in American Flyers. Not exactly Kevin Costner's greatest movie but "Day 2" in the movie is about as good as cycling movies get.

So I ended up getting 3 km of warm up in before a puncture and then replacing it with the tube I was carrying - which was actually my last punctured tube! So that was the end of that it despite a MTB racer trying to help me, she had a decent pump. Unlike my slinky and minute carbon fiber pump which is so tiny it looks more like a discrete up-market sex aid. Typical of Boulder, a MTB biker out training off-road on a 1 gear bike - Marshall Mesa may not be steep but I like another 27 gears if I head out there.

So out with the iPhone, a quick call, a few emails looking over the Flatirons, played some Solitaire and then my girls, Maja, Freya, and Vika came to pick me up for coffee. I'm not getting any fitter at this rate but its very mellow.

Truly the Sun MySQL deal has been blessed with a great promise of success. John Dvorak says the deal stinks and no one in the business has a better track record of being wrong.

This is the man who said the iPhone would be a disaster and Apple should pull the plug... Yet it goes from strength to strength. He even made a fool of himself on CNBC on the matter - which of course 4 million folks and growing can watch on their iPhones here... Again on Apple he said in 2006 they where going to drop OS X for Windows - how everyone laughed and here we are 18 months later and Jobs ignored him and has taken market share every quarter.

There seem to be two camps regarding Dvorak, the kind ones who say he deliberately says the stupidest thing he can think of as it drives us all indignantly to hit his pages to read it for ourselves, and those who think its not deliberate and he just doesn't have a clue... Maybe there is a third camp but I've not found anyone who actually uses the words insightful or though provoking and Dvorak in the same sentence.

Back to Sun and MySQL, just about everyone seems to like this deal except John - and that is another ringing endorsement. Thanks John!

I've always been a fan of gadgets like the Polar HRMs and more recently the Garmin Forerunner 305 (and the iPhone!). However unless you do something meaningful with the data they don't make you any fitter or faster - or do they?

I was recently out being a bit of a roadie to the North of Boulder, up I36 then East before taking some great backroads back down to Boulder. The pace was fine when suddenly I saw a message on the Forerunner telling me I had a low battery. So I stamped on the pedals and hammered my way back to Boulder so I would get back before it ran out - and I made it....

So they do make you faster....

Not particularly fast, not particularly strong or weak, just an enjoyable trail run West of Boulder on Table Mesa then about 8 km into what was meant to be a 15k I saw a big black dog moving down on to the trail ahead. In fact a very very big dog... Carried on running towards it and then saw another black shape less than 20m away just sitting on its haunches in the clearing checking me out.

Two Black Bears - absolutely amazing. These two were probably a few years old according to a ranger I spoke with later. Fortunately old enough not to have a protective mother in tow. In fact three of them later came down into our neighborhood in Boulder and checked out some of the bins. Makes a change from the deer we get almost every day and the occasional fox.

So remembering my reading on both bears ("make yourself look big") and bodybuilding, not a sport I've ever done but climbers in the 80s read such things in the search for training knowledge, I hit a quick "most muscular" pose but rolled out the shoulders a bit more for some extra "manly width". They were unimpressed and neither advanced nor indicated a score. Abandoning the pose-down I kept looking at them and slowly backed away whilst smiling! It was hard not to in the face of these two incredible creatures. However my better half told me off for smiling saying I look threatening - thanks Maja!

I met a couple of runners on my way back and tipped them off expecting them to take another route but I guess they were just too curious and kept on going. This was just the best run ever and I hope to see them again. Many folks in Boulder go their entire life never coming across them. If you do meet a Black Bear or two then:

• Don't Panic!
• Don't make direct eye contact
• Don't turn your back on them
• Don't behave in a threatening manner
• Don't appear frightened
• Don't climb a tree - they are better climbers than you even if you can climb E9, or 8a, or 5.14
• Do Back Off slowly- facing them

Finally in the unlikely event you do get attacked do not "play dead" - a Black Bear is not a Grizzly so if they attack you they probably want to eat you! So fight back - but it is pretty unlikely this will happen although tragically and very unusually a young boy was killed a few days later in Utah by a Black Bear.

Renamed the blog, and changed the theme - both of them. Both a new look and a new focus for the blog. I've changed to one of the new themes the Roller crew have brought us in the latest upgrades - they are getting more stylish as far as I'm concerned.

As for the new topic its going to be pretty much sports based and to be a bit more specfic, aerobic endurance sports. Running, mainly trail running and cycling and currently that is going to be a bit more roadie than MTB but I've not shaved those legs yet so the MTB stuff may still make a comeback... Also there will be a bunch of rock climbing and bouldering assuming "Enduro Girl" (over there on the left) lets her parents get back on the rock - its why we moved to Colorado in the first place! Unless you are a galactic alien reader I guess its safe to assume that you're Human and that the Human part of Human Telemetry needs no explanation, but what about Telemetry?

Wikipedia tells us (or at least did in June 2007): "Telemetry is a technology that allows the remote measurement and reporting of information of interest to the system designer or operator. The word is derived from Greek roots tele = remote, and metron = measure. Systems that need instructions and data sent to them in order to operate require the counterpart of telemetry, telecommand."

So "Human Telemetry", I'm very interested in training and training hardware and software so want to focus on that a bit from time to time. Certainly there is a powerful array of hardware available for the endurance athlete including toys/tools (your pick) such as:

Garmin Forerunner and Edge Series
Polar Heart Rate Monitor Series
Sunto and others etc etc
Cycling Power Meters etc

However despite all that good, though not always perfect, technology the mainstream training software so far seems to lag a bit behind as far as I can see. Particularly when vendor supplied it is often centered too much around the device. For example Polar takes a "heart rate" centric view whilst Garmin takes a "distance/speed" centric view. Ultimately these devices are just tools and the software would do well to be more athlete and discipline focussed. For example when I run time, pace and distance are of greater interest, generally, than heart rate which is useful additional telemetry but Polar focus primarily on the latter.

However got to run, literally, but will endevour to keep this more up to date than the old blog...

Shame I notice Tibet doesn't get its own entry - seems increasingly the world accepts its occupation by China? Now perhaps I need to go to South America and maybe return to the Middle East and tick the remaining hotspots there. It's fun but not ideal, by going to Moscow a couple of times for example the map shows a huge area in red whereas I've only seen a tiny part of Russia. Oh and how come Scotland doesn't count as a country...

Decided to split it up into all the countries I've ever visited for whatever reason, all climbing and biking related trips, and finally all work related visits (yes my boss sent me to Mauritius - twice, ah .Com sadly missed!). Finally where I've lived so far... the US is my latest and favorite home.

Total Countries Visited: 45 + 1 Tibet!

Total Countries Visited for climbing and biking: 23

Work Related Travel: 42 countries

Finally: Where I've lived... 6

create your own visited countries map Thanks to Stacy David Thurston's blog for his entry which inspired me to "tick the boxes".

I was curious to see these database results as Intel's Woodcrest by popular wisdom is strong in the x64 space at the low-end (2 sockets) yet even here Opteron seems to be holding its own, core for core. What would have been really interesting though would have been to see the results for larger socket configurations also, this is where Intel has been struggling to compete lately. Maybe they need us to create some good platforms for them... CSI may help Intel here and then we should see much larger Intel configurations - no wonder they OEM'd Solaris with CSI coming.

The Inquirer article makes you have to dig a little for the details, in fact they don't even tell you how many sockets the servers had but the full details can be found here. Perhaps those folks at Neal Nelson & Associates need to do a "try and buy" on one these x4600 Opteron x64 data eaters and perhaps IBM would match with their own esoteric (IMHO) x3950.

In both Virtualization and HPC the rule of the thumb for x64 has been for some time, > 2 sockets go Opteron. Seems like maybe we should revise this down to > 1 socket for now though in all fairness some HPC tasks do map well on to Intel's fast clock and big caches. Then again for HPC the rule should always be, benchmark the application you are going to run irrespective what any vendor, us included, tells you.

Opteron, Xeon Woodcrest compared in SQL test

Microsoft, Adobe competition heats up - Yahoo! News: " Expression Studio"

Interesting opener:

It has not escaped Microsoft's attention that some of the coolest sites on the Web — YouTube and MySpace included — get much of their flash from Flash and other design programs sold by Adobe Systems Inc.

Well that may not have escaped their attention but what seems to is that many, many designers won't touch XP or Vista with a barge pole. I have a few friends in the business and the ultimate put down from one free lance Graphic Designer and Photographer friend is:

It looks a bit windows

Not a compliment. Surely if they are serious against going into this market they realize they also need an OS X development platform and not just a client. Or maybe like Vista they are just after the mickey mouse end of the market. Mind you Ballmer is not known for understanding interfaces nor the more creative side of the business. After all he was the man who gave us the Zune.

I doubt Jonathan Ives would be in a hurry to sign up onto his payroll. I also loved this quote.

This time around, Microsoft said Expression Web will generate HTML and other code that complies with industry standards.

How nice of them! Now since we're being nice about Adobe - how about that Solaris 10 port of Acroread Johnny L?

So I was getting my library card for Boulder library, its great living back in a country where the written language is one I understand and they were processing it no problem, no questions. Amazing in itself in a town where you need a resting heart rate below 50 bpm and body fat below 14% to live within the city limits (oh those are for the over 40's by the way, if you are in your 20s you have to run a 4 minute mile amongst other things).

Anyway as I was doing this someone walked over from the pack of PCs at the entrance and caught the assistants eye. Smoothly she just reached into her draw and quickly brought out this cross between a TV remote and a phaser and pointed it at the PC. I quickly turned in time to see the screen go blank.

Wow a remote reboooting device! "So you run Windows?" I asked. "Yes" came the reply. So apparently if you run more than 1 Windows PC in any sort of heavy usage you can get these "Ballmer" devices to remotely rebooot them - that is if they run XP. If you run Vista you need to upgrade to an enhanced Ballmer device AKA a RPG 7 because the standard Ballmer device doesn't work with Vista - though you do get the joy of saying "Hasta la vista, vista (Copyright Steve Jobs)". I made the obligitory "you should run Macs remark" acknowledged by the weary "do you think I would chose Windows look" but thinking of it now SunRay is the correct answer.

Wow - I want or as my son would say "I need". I wonder if I get employee discount? Forget the fact I am a poor and untidy programmer and more of a C person than a Java - by age not preference. However these cool, cool devices scream one thing at me above all else. Sports and performance telemetry both for training/coaching but also broadcasting etc so couch potatoes can also benefit.

So lets say you're climbing the pass on your bike and you can see your mate is struggling - time to stamp hard on the peddles and pull away. Academic for most but consider the value for the next Lance Armstrong or Tyler Hamilton and their coach. Devices like these could be used to map the physical telemetry of objects relating to acceleration etc with the human telemetry given by other devices such as heart rate monitors, power meters, cadence sensors etc and give a granularity a GPS alone cannot give.

Or we can switch sports to one of the most viewed events in the world and one where the Euro's and South Americans will be doing some of the accelerating. Formula 1 (or NASCAR for American's - though presumably its easier to track objects going round and round in ovals). Imagine the additional telemetry available both to the teams in respect to forces but also the the broadcasters who could relay G forces and other data graphically back to the viewers at home. Over here, since I live in the US now, I can imagine them loving the impact forces in American Football and displaying how much force someone generates - they seem to spend more time in technical analysis than actually playing.

What else could you do:

• Stick it in a boxing glove (no not on the front)
• Stick it in a javelin - needs to be longer and slimmer?
• A shot putt, baseball bat, golf club etc etc
• Shrink it, a golf ball, a hockey puck
• A helmet
• ...

The scope appears endless and it could be a missing link in biomechanics and sports performance. Would the telemetry be useful for comparing 2 say Mountain Bike riders through the same section, is one "smoother" and more efficient or is the direct and bumpy line superior? Or how about skiers often separated by a few 10ths of a second -can smoothness and fluidity be quantified. Perhaps in Ice skating the SunSpot will be promoted to the judging panel and be holding up the 5.9 score card.

If I was a University big on sports such as UK's Loughborough University or say University of Colorado, Boulder I'd be buying a ton of these and writing the Course Material for joint Sports Science and Computing Degree's: "Sports Telemetry 101".

Now I wonder if they'll give me one free - my bikes don't arrive from Europe for another 4 weeks, time enough to do some coding, where's my copy of The Java Programming Language - rats its in the container with the bikes... Still I could take it climbing instead, "there I was 20' out when a hold snapped, took a 60' fall..." Sorry Tony your SunSpot confirms you actually fell 27' - so don't exaggerate. Perhaps the only losers will be the climbers exaggerating back at the bar - it was 60' for sure, I know because I had time to flap my arms...

SunSpotWorld - Home of Project Sun SPOT: ""

Not surprisingly GPS and navigation company Garmin are navigating away from Finnish Heart Rate Monitor company Polar. I was pleased to see that not only do they do Training Center on OS X but now also their web updater is OS X native and works with the Forerunner and Edge series. Couple this with online training resource MotionBased (also supports macs) and its a good starting point for runners, cyclist, triathletes etc. Also an ecosystem has started to develop with the cool and free/donationware Trailrunner etc., which imports direct from Garmin's own Training Center - thats "ecosystem".

Now back to Polar, sure Garmin Products are not entirely direct competitors to Polar Heart Rate Monitors having GPS functionality, but Polar are extremely lost in their out of touch attitude towards end users which can be summed up as "the only athletes are Windows athletes". Polar only support their range of products on the Microsoft platform but even worse expect a tariff for anyone who develops software to interface to them. Wake up, these people can add value and innovate in a hundred ways that you may never have thought up. Publish you APIs, assign a couple of developers to oversea a wiki part-time, and participate in forums, perhaps collaborate with a few Universities and get more diverse software out there at a low cost - you'll reap the benefit in hardware sales, brand recognition and reputation.

Finland is the country that gave the world Linux, surely you can trust independent developer to develop training software across multiple platforms. Wording like this belongs to another, earlier, century:

This platform is meant for professional third party SW developers with whom we will make a license agreement. The reason for aiming this to professionals is simply lack of resources to support each individual programmer. This package is, however, also available for research institutes. In any case, Polar Electro Oy reserves the right not to enter in such an agreement if it so desires.

This show a basic misunderstanding on the value of ecosystem. If your primary revenue stream is hardware, such as the Polar range, then getting as broad a bunch of ISVs and individuals to hack together software which works with your products is a bonus. Then Mac users, Linux users, Solaris users, Symbian users etc can take advantage and the product can work to being more ubiquitous.

Don't get me wrong, I want Polar to get it right as I do like their hardware and my 720i was a great piece of kit (though they do need to work on the "Human Computer Interface" angle that Apple do so well). Mac users if you don't want to abandon Polar yet then you can take a look at iSmarttrain. Linux users there is some stuff out there and Solaris users - perhaps someone can port that Linux software over. Won't be me though as my Polar 720i is back in its box and I'm 100% switched to my Garmin Forerunner 305 - great piece of kit though longer battery life would be nice.

Must stop, time to go for a run...

Garmin: WebUpdater For Mac Updates & Downloads

So LDoms early access is now available so check it out for zero cost. LDoms is a hypervisor based technology on Sun's CMT platforms, today the T1000 and T2000 platforms. Architecturally there are some fundamental similarities between LDoms and x86 based Hypervisors such as VMware's ESX and Xen (shh - I get nervous using that word in case XenSource try and sue me "for my own protection"). There are however also very significant differences in the LDoms Hypervisor implementation - a future topic or two I think.

However, whilst I've not got time to go into today there are huge fundamental advantages with LDoms and the highly innovative 8 core, 32 thread T1 processor which was designed with Virtualization in mind. Anyone who studies the x86 architecture and its bizarre ring architecture knows that historically it was never designed for virtualization. Quick tip though if you are virtualizing x64 then today AMD-V has significant architectural advantages over Intel VT at least until CSI ships perhaps next year.

However back to the phenomenal T1 and LDoms - best of all the download is free and both platforms are also available for free evaluation on Sun's Try and Buy program. To get you started we also have a nice Blue Print available to get you up and running.

I've probably spent a little more time than most Westerners in Saudi Arabia and probably visited a few places that the average Westerner doesn't get to (Riyadh, Jeddah and Dhahran being the usual haunts). In fact I've even spent time down in the mountains around Abha south of Mecca and Medina spreading the Sun Ray message.

My usual advice to anyone going to Saudi Arabia is do not "go for a run" through the streets of Dhahran or Khobar specially in todays climate and I'm not referring to the weather. I ran through the streets perhaps somewhat naively when I was loaned to Schlumberger by Sun back in about 1997 and judging by the reactions it was not the normal thing to do. This is a more conservative culture where in the gyms changing rooms there are signs like "On no account allow yourself to be seen naked at any time"



I enjoyed this little snippet an old expat friend send me, and now my new piece of advice is - don't try this in Tevas, Saudi Sandals typically have a wooden base which might help...

Seems Microsoft is trying to keep the Virtualization playing field uneven everywhere. As I mentioned recently they have an extremely restrictive Vista license around virtualization ostensibly to protect us poor little users.

It seems in the enterprise space they have a whole host of further restrictions which VMware delight to detail. No doubt they are hitting some Sun customers already deploying VMware and in the future Xen.

Love VMware or hate them one thing is for sure, in the Windows Virtualization space Diane Green is kicking poor Steve Ballmer all over the place. Perhaps Diane should give Steve Jobs a ring and they could tag team against Ballmer and Gates.

There is however a more strategic longer term fix, start migrating to applications and ISVs who won't sell you on a platform then kick you in the teeth every few years. Choose as a base an Open Source OS with strong virtualization offerings, Solaris: Dynamic system Domains, LDoms, Containers and more coming...

Microsoft is probably tired at the endless comparisons of Vista to Apple's OS X - normally with Vista being a laughing stock. One way they are fighting back is by punitive Virtualization EULA. Consumer versions of Vista are not allowed to be virtualized "on security grounds" apparently.

• Ballmer's self-fulfilling prophecy
• Microsoft tells some users no on Vista
• Microsoft swallows the BluePill

This is a clear travesty, specially from a company whose approach to security is notoriously lax. In fact Virtualization can often be used to make the end user environment more secure. For example one can use one virtualized instance to do personnel work etc in complete isolation from another work environment. Then you can run these on a more secure base OS such as OS X or Linux, and in a short while Solaris.

It seems clear to many that Microsoft Vista which is under attack from all sides is using this excuse to hamper switchers to OS X and other OSs by making it illegal for them to have easy access to Vista "when required". It must be pretty galling for Ballmer and Gates to have some many reputed journalists over and over again draw unfavorable comparisons with Apples Tiger and soon leopard versions of OS X.

Despite the recent launch of VirtualPC 7 Microsoft's own virtualization strategy is currently in tatters as it has to give all its virtualization platforms away free and still they have little traction against VMware and others. They pin their hopes on their Veridian Hypervisor but I suspect many enterprises will be sitting on the fence in case ballmer ships a couple of sub standard releases before getting it right - maybe Xen and ESX will have made it irrelevant by then

Meanwhile at Sun work continues on Xen and Solaris and promises the best of both worlds, virtualization on an enterprise operating system. However one thing you won't be able to do is run those low end versions of Vista - at least while Redmond is running scared.