It’s official (or it will be as soon as FedEx does its thing): I’m going to work for Amazon.com. I shall be working with Werner Vogels, the Amazon CTO. My start date is August 14; I’ll be heading off to Seattle on August 8. Lots to do between now and then.
I’m very excited by this job, and just a little bit intimidated too. For years I’ve been involved in projects at Sun which focussed on “distributed computing at large scale”. Those of you who heard Rob Gingell or Greg Papadopoulos (or me) speaking on the subject will know that we were convinced that the reality of “large scale” would continue to surprise people. (Shades of Hofstadter’s Law, or Douglas Adams on space.) Well, now I get to deal with “really, really large scale” – unmediated, no excuses, in the flesh. It’s challenging. It’s… well, exhilarating. And it’s a wonderful opportunity.
More anon. Right now, I’m going to crack open a bottle of champagne!
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P.S. Many thanks to all of you who helped with this, especially Dan, Cassandra, Wendy, and Rakhel.
Shine on You Crazy Diamond
ASTRONOMY DOMINE
Lime and limpid green, a second scene
A fight between the blue you once knew.
Floating down, the sound resounds
Around the icy waters underground.
Jupiter and Saturn, Oberon, Miranda and Titania.
Neptune, Titan, Stars can frighten.
Blinding signs flap
Flicker, flicker, flicker blam. Pow, pow.
Stairway scare, Dan Dare who’s there?
Lime and limpid green, the sounds around the icy waters under
Lime and limpid green, the sounds around the icy waters underground
Alec says hello
My next car?!
Forget the Prius: I want one of these!! 330MPG!!!
Sun memorabilia
Herewith three items of Sun memorabilia: two photos, and a video clip. The photos were scanned at 600 dpi from prints; you can click through to get the full-res images. The video clip is a 25MB MPEG4.
The first is a group shot taken at a country club somewhere in the Greater Boston area, with Scott McNealy and a bunch of long-time East Coast Sun folks. I can’t remember the occasion – 10th anniversary of ECD, perhaps? (That would make it 1995.)
The second is much earlier: a shot of the ECD staff including the larger-than-life Barry James Folsom. It must date from about 1987….
The final item is the video clip that was prepared for Phil Rosenzweig’s memorial, after 9/11. (I doubt that grommit will serve this fast enough for glitch-free viewing; you might want to right-click on the link and save the file before playing it.)
If you can supply precise dates and times, please leave a comment. (And of course I’ve been gazing at these photos, scratching my head and saying, repeatedly, “Dammit, I know that face, but I can’t put a name to it!!!”)
Random 10
Here’s the mix for this week (un-manipulated!). Some Hi-NRG stuff, and then there’s the crystalline elegance of Eddie Jobson’s Theme Of Secrets:
- “Who Do You Think You Are (Saturday Night Fever Dub)” by Saint Etienne (from Who Do You Think You Are)
- “I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing (Wild Pitch Mix)” by the Pet Shop Boys (from I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing (Dance Mixes))
- “The Pirate Of Penance” by Joni Mitchell (from Song To A Seagull)
- “Inner Secrets” by Eddie Jobson (from Theme Of Secrets)
- “Amor Amor” by Nino (from Buddha Bar 2)
- “Vertigo” by U2 (from How to dismantle an atomic bomb)
- “Betty Boop’s Birthday” by Al Stewart (from Between The Wars)
- “Love Puppets” by the Legendary Pink Dots (from Curse)
- “Sam Hall” by Johnny Cash (from American IV: The Man Comes Around)
- “Encore Une Fois [Dancing Divaz Club Mix]” by Sash! (from Encore Une Fois)
Dealing with Coulter
What the hell is happening to science education in the UK?
Per Boris Johnson in The Observer – but this isn’t a partisan issue: it’s a national crisis:
The figures are terrifying. In the 20 years from 1985 to 2005, the overall number of entries at A-level rose by about 100,000, from about 680,000 to about 780,000. Yet maths fell from 71,608 to 58,830. Physics A-levels slumped from 46,606 to 28,119. Chemistry fell from 40,337 to 38,851. There are some London boroughs where further maths is virtually extinct.
UPDATE: There’s a good follow-up discussion here.
Occam's Razor 1: Cherished mythology 0
Check out this piece by Richard Seager in American Scientist on The Source of Europe’s Mild Climate
If you grow up in England, as I did, a few items of unquestioned wisdom are passed down to you from the preceding generation. Along with stories of a plucky island race with a glorious past and the benefits of drinking unbelievable quantities of milky tea, you will be told that England is blessed with its pleasant climate courtesy of the Gulf Stream, that huge current of warm water that flows northeast across the Atlantic from its source in the Gulf of Mexico. That the Gulf Stream is responsible for Europe’s mild winters is widely known and accepted, but, as I will show, it is nothing more than the earth-science equivalent of an urban legend.
And he does, using nothing more than existing data, clear simple models, and a healthy sense of skepticism. Beautiful work.
Strange how you can slip into the beginnings of a routine
I took Tommy back to his parents yesterday evening. It was odd: we’ve had him stay over for one night at a time, but after four days you start to find yourself slipping into a routine. It also brings back memories from 30 years ago: lots of fun, but so much work! At this age (13 months) kids are simply engines for converting food into energy, growth and waste products; your mission is simply to keep up.
Anyway, here are a few more photos for the extended family.