End of an Era

As the Easter holiday began, I picked the post of the floor and discovered three polling cards. Three!!. Goodness – they’re letting my elder son vote this year. I haven’t quite rushed to the photo albums to look at the pictures of him as a baby, but somehow, today, eighteen years seems to have flown like lightening. He can vote, kill & die for his country. (Don’t think he can stand as an MP though.) …

Nicholas & Alexandra, the last of the Romanovs

It just reminds me of the fact that I have never studied that period of history properly. My elder son is however; his History “A” Level course has spent three terms studying modern Russian ( & hence Soviet History). This is what attracted him, as the school has for many years visited Russia, sadly for his year, they decided to stop it. Actually the film was made in 1971 at the height of the cold war and is very dated in its production values, let alone its politics. …

Dr Who & Utility Computing

1st episode of Dr Who for 20? years – finished about an hour ago. My Vote – great! (You can also see the BBC Site here….)

Despite the casting of Billie Piper as the assistant and some of Chris Ecclestone’s previous parts which hardly qualify him to play the Doctor, the BBC’s investment in love, script, humour and effects just brings back the best. Ecclestone’s mercurial, manic & mysterious performance is reminiscent of Tom Baker, the fan’s favourite, and maybe Sylvester McCoy, one of my favourites. (I don’t count Paul McGann as a Doctor, and neither does IMDB). While my son (18) asks how the shop dummies suddenly obtain machine guns up their arms, I jumped out my seat when the wheelie bin attacked Rose’s (Piper) boy friend. …

Will CPU trading enable an FX market??

I met with Roger Day, Sun’s Engineering Director responsible for building Sun’s Utility Grid. We had a long conversation. I was eager to explore how one makes the outputs of the grid homogeneous, since the homogeneity of commodity is one of its axiomatic qualities. He asked me what I thought of the idea of an exchange. I replied that my view is that if we can create a primary market, and it looks like we can, a secondary market will follow. I wonder though if people will look to exchange Solaris CPU/hours for AIX or even Windows CPU/hours. Will we have a cycle FX market?. …

10 around town

10 around town

Sun commissioned a competition amongst the students at the Royal Institute of Art to associate, using sculpture, key values to the No 10, and hence Solaris to celebrate the launch of Solaris 10. The winners are available for viewing outside the Lloyd’s building on Thursday.  I may try and get down to St Helen’s Piazza, these look quite good. The reason I like  this marketing project, is it mixes publicising the great qualities of Solaris 10, with communitarian sponsorship and we get the double whammy of people talking about the art and talking about Sun & Solaris. Also, I like sculpture. …