So Long, Sun

I’ve only been involved with Sun for the past two or three years, but it’s been great while it lasted. The employees are excellent, the software fantastic, and the opportunities for fun more than can be imagined. I vaguely knew the Sun name before I started high school, but my involvement in the Sysadmin program at TJ brought me to working for Sun for a summer, and has given me extreme joy, especially when our AEG proposal was accepted, and through all the great employees I met and became friends with. Scott McNealy presented at TJ in the spring of this year, and is in my mind one of the most respected capitalists in Silicon Valley due to the way he ran Sun, and the motivations behind their moves. The company will be truly missed, and I hope that Oracle and all Sun employees keep a light burning for the passion and work that the Sun name meant for everyone. Best of luck everyone, and have a great new adventure at Oracle!

McNealy's Bittersweet Memo Bids Good-Bye to Sun - “Kick butt and have fun.”

The Register: Scott McNealy Signs Off in Style

After first learning the Sun deal had completed, the following image was created:

Thanks to James Gosling for the above images, and have a great new adventure. The future looks bright.

Toblerone Bear

Marker drawing by Joe Kern

Official Toblerone logo

The image on the left is a drawing my roommate created a few days ago, and the picture on the right is the official logo/image on the Toblerone bars.

Went to bed yesterday at around midnight, and was woken up around 2 in the morning. Stayed up until about 4:30 since my other three roommates were still up (no reason why), and so we were just chatting and joking around for quite a bit. Got up later at 8 for my discrete math class and Freshman Year Enrichment ii, and then had my fun 8 hour lull until Russian in the evening. Only have one more week until course registration for the spring, so it feels like the year is going by quicker than it really is (today’s weather also helped the lie!).

As far as my TJ involvement is concerned, I reopened a case having to do with Dulles, and sent in some more diagnostic information to the engineer assigned to the case, so hopefully we’ll get a resolution fairly soon.

Rochester Friday in January

I took this picture yesterday, and found it sort of represents the whole season and school quarter here at RIT during the winter. The contrast between the dark on the bottom and the brighter top half symbolize the coldness, dreariness and sort of “slowness” of the length of the winter season and academic quarter, but sooner or later it will be over, and the temperatures will warm up and it’ll be spring. I also liked it for the lack of people, and the pureness of the natural surroundings that we’re blessed with here. Meanwhile, the snow is a nice symbol of the weather that will hang around for months to come. This snow fell over a week ago, and it is only now starting to finally disappear.

First SAAA Event a Success

Meeting at TJ on a foggy and misty December 26th, the first SysAdmin Alumni Association event consisted of Jefferson graduates of the classes of 1991 up until 2011. The ‘new’ SAAA group briefly met up with the group of Sysadmins that have been meeting at the Annandale Fuddruckers since around 2000, and introductions were made. Members of SAAA trickled in over time after 2pm, and story sharing between the two groups took over much of the talking (with an obligatory Emacs/Vim discussion). Bodies from the “older” admin group included Mr. Don Hyatt, the first Syslab faculty director, Ilia Mirkin (01), and Brent Metz (98). Several members of the older group left early, as they had already met at Fuddruckers slightly earlier in the day and ate there.

After being kicked of the school building, the admins stood in the Senior parking lot for about an hour, and then moved over to Fuddruckers to order food and talk some more. The meeting ended at 6:48pm, and people left shortly thereafter. Plans were made to make this event annual, combining both groups into one as to allow for a large reunion. Others voiced interest in having smaller events throughout the year held near/in the school.

Creative Sun Blog Sign-Off

As Sun Microsystems experiences these hard times while negotiations with the EU take place, it seems a fair number of Sun bloggers have left in order to pursue jobs elsewhere, or for retirement. The other day I saw a really creative farewell notice on a Sun employee's blog, that was based on the Dr. Seuss book . The book, a popular gift for students graduating from high school and college (my high school once made a video montage of teachers and faculty reading parts of the book), carries some themes applicable to all aspects of life. This Sun employee took the book (or at least a condensed version) and made it relate to the ups and downs of working at Sun, and posted it here. Best of luck for the future!

EPA to Limit Carbon Emissions?

Well, maybe not just quite yet, but a study to be released in the near future is expected to report that greenhouse gases "pose a danger to human health and the environment", which would be the first step to limiting emissions, and lead to a (hopefully) more fruitful climate summit in Copenhagen.

'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

An article at The Guardian caught my eye earlier. On December 7th, an editorial about the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Council meeting will be published by "56 newspapers in 45 countries", and urge the leaders at the summit to set goals for greenhouse gas emissions. The goals of the editorial are noble, and I sincerely hope action is taken, and quickly. Having (hopefully) many years left on this Earth, being left with an inhabitable Earth that isn't being overrun with floods, tornadoes, and earthquakes would be just a small gesture of hope in our generation by those currently in power.

Leaving us with an economy that isn't on the brink of failing (see the U.S. Debt Clock and the country's current debt, not to mention the unfunded liabilities) would also be nice. I'm not sure about other Americans, but I would be more than willing to raise taxes in order to help pay down our enormous debts to other countries, as well as to ourselves. I'm not keen on our economic situation being able to be dictated by other nations that may not have our best interests at heart.

Update 2009-12-06 2244 - A Wall Street Journal article published today fits in very nicely with the Guardian article. Some preliminary numbers published by the World Bank detail how much the adaptation of nations to the increased sea levels and other global warming effects might cost, and suggests that these help nations to determine a starting point for fixing the problem.