Archive For The “Ramblings” Category
I just got back from O’Reilly’s Foo Camp. Foo is an interesting conference format in that there is no set agenda. It’s basically self organized as a open space-type event but that’s not what makes it special. What makes Foo a very cool conference is the people. Lots of conferences invite good people but few…
Earlier today Nokia announced it will acquire the remaining 52% share of the Symbian Limited to take over controlling interest of the mobile operating system provider with 91% of the outstanding shares. This alone is interesting but what is fascinating is they also announced their intention to open source Symbian to create “the most attractive…
Yesterday the Tribute to Honor Jim Gray was held at the University of California at Berkeley. We all miss Jim deeply so it really is a tough topic. But it was great to get together with literally 100s of Jim’s friends and share stories and talk about some of his accomplishments, his contributions to the…
I forget what brought it up but sometime back Sriram Krishnan forwarded me this article on Mike Burrows and his work through Dec, Microsoft, and Google (The Genius: Mike Burrows’ self-effacing journey through Silicon Valley). I enjoyed the read. Mike has done a lot over the years but perhaps his best known works of recent…
The only thing worse than no backups is restoring bad backups. A database guy should get these things right. But, I didn’t, and earlier today I made some major site-wide changes and, as a side effect, this blog was restored to December 4th, 2007. I’m working on recovering the content and will come up with…
What’s commonly referred to as the Great Firewall of China isn’t really a firewall at all. I recently came across an Atlantic Monthly article investigating how the Great Firewall works and what it does (see The Connection has been Reset). The official name of what is often called the Great Firewall of China is the…
I’m long been a big fan of modular data centers using ISO standard Shipping containers as the component building block: Commodity Datacenter Design: http://research.microsoft.com/~jamesrh/TalksAndPapers/JamesRH_CIDR.doc. Commodity Datacenter Design Slides: http://research.microsoft.com/~jamesrh/TalksAndPapers/JamesRH_Amazon.ppt. Containers have revolutionized shipping and are by far the cheapest way to move good over sea, land, rail or truck. I’ve seen them used to house…
Earlier today I viewed Steve Jobs 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University. In this talk Jobs recounts three stories and ties them together with a common theme. The first was dropping out of Reed College and showing up for the courses he wanted to take rather than spend time on those he had to take….
Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist and engineer. His work is truly amazing. What he builds are massive synthetic animals, many more than a floor high, that walk. Their gait is surprisingly realistic and they are wind powered. More than anything they are spooky and yet deeply engaging. Check out a selection of Jansen’s work…
I get several hundred emails a day, some absolutely vital and needing prompt action and some about the closest thing to corporate spam. I know I’m not alone. I’ve developed my own systems on managing the traffic load and, on different days, have varying degrees of success in sticking to my systems. In my view,…
This isn’t directly related to high scale services or saving power in the data center but it’s a great video. Bill Gates Last Days (6:54) from CES. –jrh James Hamilton, Windows Live Platform Services Bldg RedW-D/2072, One Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, 98052 W:+1(425)703-9972 | C:+1(206)910-4692 | H:+1(206)201-1859 | JamesRH@microsoft.com H:mvdirona.com | W:research.microsoft.com/~jamesrh
I’ve got nothing against for-fee software – that’s what has paid the bills around our home for more than 20 years. Nonetheless, when it comes to education, it’s hard not to love free. Yesterday Microsoft announced a great program. Universities and high schools can now make use of Microsoft professional development tools for games, cell…
Earlier today Microsoft, held an internal tribute to Jim Gray, celebrating his contributions to the industry and to each of us personally. It’s been just over a year since Jim last sailed out of San Francisco Harbor in Tenacious. He’s been missing since. Speakers at the tribute to Jim included Rich Rashid, Butler Lampson, Peter…
Founders at work (http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/1590597141) is a series of 32 interview with founders of well-known startups. Some have become very successful as independent companies such as Apple where Steve Wozniak was interviewed, Adobe Systems where Charles Geschke was interviewed, and Research in Motion where Mike Lazaridis was interviewed. Others were major successes through acquisition, including Mitch…
Exactly one year ago, Jim Gray guided his sailboat Tenacious out of San Francisco’s Gashouse Cove Marina into the Bay. He sailed under the Golden Gate Bridge and continued towards the Faralon Islands, some 27 miles off the California coast line. Until that morning, I chatted with Jim via email or phone several days a…
If you are interested in boating, the Seattle Boat Show opened yesterday. Jennifer and I will be presenting on the red stage at 4:15 on Saturday February 2nd. Our presentation will be some of our favorite anchorages and cruising areas selected from Cruising the Secret Coast: Unexplored Anchorages on British Columbia’s Inside Passage which just…