phik

John’s post about data struck a chord. Part of my Australian lecture series has been about engineering process — certainly about the PSP/TSP, in part, but more importantly about the fact that you need a defined process of some kind, because our industry is a disaster of epic proportions.

The SEI is fond of the assertion that you can’t improve what you don’t measure, about which I could not more readily agree.

When it comes to so many things, if you don’t have data, you’re just flapping your lips.

This is confidential to my Perth readership, just in case one or more of the 1.5 million residents accidentally got this feed into their RSS readers and don’t know how to remove it.

To open my lecture series, Tuesday March 6th at 17:30 I will be performing for a live audience at iVEC, ARRC Auditorium, 26 Dick Perry Avenue, Technology Park, Kensington, Perth, Western Australia.

Maestro, if you please: Rumpshaker, or some reasonable facsimile!

“Seven Short Stories About Open Source”

“Open Source” is about as potent a buzzword as any modern technology phrase, but what does it really mean, and how does anyone involved turn a profit?

We’ll discuss seven companies that successfully incorporate open source concepts into their businesses. Some are well-known, others are not, but each has taken a different approach given their own distinct goals.

While it is technically an ACS event, anyone in need of my efficacious brand of sleep aid is welcome. But you do need to register.

Refreshments will be served.

My friends and former colleagues at Cray are due some congratulations!

They, along with IBM, won a huge DARPA award that they’ve been working on for years. I’ve seen some of the concepts they put forward in their proposal, and they are pretty amazing.

Investors apparently think so too. Not one of you could pick up the phone and tell me yesterday? Some friends.

While I was in Toronto last week, I was afforded the opportunity to have dinner with the always spectacular Graydon Hoare, during which I discovered that contrary to my self-centered beliefs, most of my faraway friends are out of touch with my major life events. It should be explained for the historical record that I have some noteworthy experience at being a terrible long-distance friend, which will no doubt be chronicled extensively in the official biography.

Having just assumed that everyone who was interested already knew, it seems odd to write about this so far removed from the actual event.

Effective April 1 (almost five months ago!) I resigned from my positions as a director and Chief Executive of Cluster File Systems — which is to say that although I remain an owner, I’ve given up all operational involvement. After more than four years, I had taken CFS about as far as I could under the circumstances, and I felt more than ready to start thinking about new challenges and a change of pace. It was an incredibly (but not surprisingly) difficult decision to leave a company that I practically co-founded, but the more time passes, the more I think that it was the right choice. My own burnout was imminent, and the company was clearly stable and mature enough to handle the transition. If not then, when?

My intention was to spend the summer and perhaps autumn unemployed, as a way of making up for my failure to take any kind of serious holiday over the last five years, and to think about what I want to do next. But almost immediately — since it actually took well into June before everything was completely wound down — these plans were waylaid by someone I thought was my friend. I was tricked into a whirlwind summer contract to improve the management of something I knew nothing about (I like to think that I have not completely failed at this task), but I am pleased to report that September 1st will mark the commencement of the Autumn of Phik that we all so richly await.

So there you have it! The first question everyone asks is what I’m going to do after my time off, and I honestly don’t know — that’s at least half the purpose of the holiday. I will be watching with interest to see where Lustre and CFS go from here, but my labours will almost certainly be totally unrelated. I’m exploring an interesting part-time opportunity for the winter months, which I’ll write about if it becomes something real, but I’m hoping by the spring to be refreshed and ready to start full time on something new.

In 2000, I had a small contract to review some file system code for some company. I don’t remember who, what or why, exactly, only that I saved this comment. It’s still just as true today:

/****************************************************************
* charon_linux_end_io
*
* 1st name: gay_ass_linux_io_i_dont_want_to_submit_another_small_patch_that_will_
definately_get_rejected_god_damnit_so_i_will_just_copy_hans_reisers_hack_t
* 2nd name: god_damnit_i_hate_this_fucking_os_and_the_god_damn_mailing_list_with_
300_useless_posts_a_day_to_drown_you_out_t
* 3rd name: fuck_and_slashdot_sucks_too_just_for_the_hell_of_it_t
* 4th name: natalie_portman_with_hot_grits_in_her_pants_t
*
* all of these were rejected because they were too long
*
* 5th name: linux_fucking_sucks_t
*
* not descriptive enough
****************************************************************/

[ We didn't add this comment, we found it already in the code. We apologize for any misunderstanding. --ed. ]

I’ve been trying to procure some new Baytech RPC3 telnettable power switches. Well, new to me — eBay is how I do this. They’re usually on the order of 400-600% more expensive new. No kidding!

Last time eBay surprised me good, because what arrived was the RPC3-20NC, which has a 20-amp twist-lock plug (this plug is not standard issue in American, or indeed any, homes). This subtle distinction went curiously unmentioned in the description, probably because they actually wanted the sale. Anyways, I just built a little fire-hazard converter from Home Depot parts — which the lady was not very excited about selling to me, once she knew what I was going to do with them — and it has served me well since that day. It could have been worse, I suppose. It could have been 220v.

This time eBay is failing me more completely; there are no -15NC or -20NC units to be found, and the least expensive new unit I see is $505 (froogle, by the way, finds none). I need three. Does anyone want to recommend a similar unit, available at fire-sale eBay prices, preferably already supported by Powerman? I know I’m asking a lot.

Somewhat to my surprise — not least because until ten minutes ago I didn’t realize that such an award existed — Lustre makes an appearance in the Supercomputing Online “product of the year” poll. Not that we don’t deserve it, you understand, just surprised because we’re not normally invited to these kinds of parties, since I don’t employ a team of people with enormous marketing budgets for buying off the editorial staff of any award-granting organization. Ahem.

As you can see, we’re lagging in the voting somewhat, behind companies that are 5,000, 11,000, and 24,000 times larger than mine (their names all have three letters; no more hints).

Anything you could do about that would be welcome, assuming of course that you deem us deserving. Actually, not “anything”; please don’t stuff the ballot box. I consider it a victory just to be listed (last year, apparently, IBM accounted for four out of nine by themselves).

It’s January 8th, and I’m finished with the holiday cards! My hand is twisted into an arthritic, palsied hook, cramped and permanently disfigured. But all of my best customers and partners will receive my warm wishes for the new year, and that is perhaps what matters. Fortunately, all I need to be able to do any more is answer the telephone, which I can probably manage with my left hand.

Tonight I watched a remarkable 1963 documentary, filmed behind the scenes of the confrontation caused when Alabama governor George Wallace blocked the first two black students from registering at the University of Alabama. Four teams were on location — in the oval office, the Governor’s office, the attorney general’s office, and traveling with the deputy AG — filming with “hand-held” cameras. I’m amazed that such footage exists at all, let alone that a documentary filmmaker was granted such access by all parties at such a time. It is pretty fascinating to see how Kennedy’s plan was formulated and executed. A very clever plan, I thought, to minimize the likelihood of violence, to avoid calling in troops before the need had been demonstrated to the public, and to avoid having the governor actually commit a crime — which would have required them either to arrest Wallace (angering most of the South and any Federalist worth his name), or ignore it (presumably angering civil rights activists, and those who believe that all laws must always be enforced regardless of what’s sensible or pragmatic).

Very clever.

I spent today at Sandia National Laboratories, home of the Whopper. I learned that they have supercomputers named liberty, freedom, and democracy. I am not making this up.

Anyways, it went OK. Sandia has a lot of Lustre on the floor now, and it seems to be working pretty well.

Albuquerque, I may have mentioned before, is a bit of a pain to get to and from. It’s not all that well-connected in the air travel web, which means it’s practically impossible to fly in or out on the day of your meeting. This time, through careful planning, I will at least escape on the same day.

Last night, on my way in, we were stuck in Denver for a little while. I guess the incoming aircraft had a broken “flight control computer,” which these modern, lazy, over-fed airplane captains apparently can’t live without. Or maybe it’s big brother FAA again, trying to tell me how to live my life and fly my airplanes. I don’t know what the big deal is — they got the plane to Denver, didn’t they?

At any rate, this is another reason why I like traveling with a big legacy airline: we took one of their spare, eighty-million-dollar aircraft so that I could get to my destination at some approximation of on-time. Two thumbs up.

Tonight, not so lucky. Late aircraft arrival means late departure, means arriving in Denver just in time to see my Boston plane push back. Drat.

You know that your fatigue has crossed some sort of line when a perfect stranger walking by stops at your dinner table to tell you how tired you look. The bartender lady gave me a bit of a steely eye before pouring that third scotch.

Just for the record, as early as one o’clock I told him that I wasn’t forcing him to keep working tonight. But he has a point about working late. And he went to bed an hour ago.