JavaOne photo

Here's a photo of Jeet, Bob, Tim, and I on a panel at JavaOne. This was fun because I was the moderator asking pesky questions about Java and dynamic languages!

Where 2.0 tomorrow!

I'll be at Where 2.0 tomorrow! Last year I was a speaker for Dash and it was a blast. This year I get to enjoy the conference as an attendee, absorbing location service trends and APIs like a sponge. We're working with some of these vendors for Project Hydrazine, Sun's service platform for (Java) developers.

I'm stoked to go to this conference. I always come back with a notebook full of application ideas. Should see my dear friends from Dash (I miss ya'll) and good buddies from Nokia. Woo hoo!

Mark, I've got a present for you. Don't let me forget to give it you.

The world is just a big mash-up, and location is everything ;-)

Doing things the old fashioned way

In another effort to go green, we've unplugged our fourteen year old dryer and are air drying all of our clothes this summer. With five people in the house, clothes lines now criss-cross our backyard. It looks like the crowded side streets of a major metro on a hot summer day!

Our first design defect was putting some of the lines too close to the pool. One of my patented cannonballs drenched some of the clothes. Back to the design drawing board.

They say that drying clothes this way is cathartic, but I'm declaring it time consuming. Pants, towels, and shirts make sense, but handling smaller items conflicts with the time value of money. We need to buy a new Energy Star compliant washer and dryer to compliment our air drying!

Time for a Java podcast!

I think when I get back to work I'm going to start an insider's podcast on Java. JavaOne made me realize that Java is as much a community as it is a language, platform, or enabling technology. It's about people creating amazing things to solve real customer problems.

I'm going to call it "Inside the FX" as an homage to JavaFX and the magic of creating create consumer products.

I want to highlight the magic that makes Java happens, especially in this time when we are revitalizing many parts of the platform. There are so many funny stories, great people, and interesting stories that I think the community might find interesting. Both inside Sun and with all of our amazing partners!

It's got be real, however. Not a puff piece. We should give our competition cred where it is due, and discuss the bonehead moves we sometimes make. Quoting Sun Tzu, "Good judgement comes from experience, and often experience comes from bad judgement". While I can't and won't "talk outside of church" or spill state secrets, the most interesting stories are often the most honest, wherever the story goes.

My benchmark is Major Nelson's Xbox Live podcast. Larry Hyrb and "E" deliver the news about Xbox I want, but also share the interesting stories about the "how" of the news. It's also incredibly entertaining to listen to them talk about their lives, given how intertwined Microsoft, Xbox, and Seattle are bound into their daily routine. It's great because Microsoft PR sanctions his podcast but they don't censor it. Larry just uses good judgement.

I've already got the first ten podcasts drafted in my notebook, so now I just need some microphones, my office, and time. And Karen's permission ;-)

A question I've always wondered is why Larry doesn't just do a wide angle video shot and post a vblog? Is voice enough? People probably don't want to watch two people talk? Works for Charlie Rose ;-)

May 11; a kickass day!

Highlights of the Day
+ Going to Rancho San Antonio with my family and having a picnic at the farm. Nick got to see an amazing pinto horse named Apache, pigs, goats, sheep, and countless flowers. We had a blast!
+ First time in our pool for the year. It was a blast, and made paying for all the repairs this Spring seem like the right move.
+ Having the best wife in the world to celebrate Mother's Day with (and for)

Lowlight
- Watching the cost of basic goods sky rocket knowing there is little you can do to solve macro economic issues

My Day as a Song
U2 - Beautiful Day

Game I am Playing
Rock Band for Playstation 3

Definitely a candidate for my 2008 Game of the Year! I'm terrible at drums even though I like to think I'd be a good drummer. The reality to perception gap is wide in my case. I love singing and learning that I really don't know the words to songs that I think I do!

Random Thoughts
It's easier to appreciate what you have when you haven't had it for awhile
If a sheep isn't shorn, how long will its hair grow?

Torn between beliefs

I like to say that I'm fiscally conservative and socially moderate to liberal. Occasionally those beliefs clash, and the recent movement by Congress to provide relief to those with troubled mortgages tests my belief system.

Now I'm the first guy to say that low income and elderly folks who got hoodwinked by fast talking mortgage lenders should get some relief. What happened there was clearly a lack of regulation and ethics. That happens all the time, and when it becomes fraud, not only should the victims get relief but the criminals should pay for the relief with their profits and their time. A little time in the big house getting abused by a murderer named "Frank the Stick" will, in general, provide the message to white collar criminals that fraud has a heavy price. A highly visible CEO getting "quality time" with Frank (maybe covered via a reality TV show?!) might be a better deterrent than our currently irrelevant regulatory system.

But what happened over the last few years was more than simple fraud. What happened in the last few years was sheer GREED. A base sin. Simple common sense was thrown out the window by everyone. Anyone could purchase something, in this case a home, that was far more expensive than they could afford. A whole industry let this folly continue because there were no regulations to stop it or they were relaxed by the village idiot's (aka Bush) minions who again were motivated by GREED. Bankers, lenders, regulators, etc. all let anyone who could sign a valid legal agreement abuse the system.

And that is my key point. At the end of the day, anyone stupid enough to pay for something they couldn't afford without a perfect storm of positive economic events to back them should be responsible for the outcome when that perfect storm ends. For every elderly person or individual who was taken advantage of in the housing boom/bust, there were ten people who were trying to take advantage of the system. Congrats to you while it was working. What you did wasn't illegal, so more profits to you. Now that the bubble has burst, it's time for fiscally reckless people to lose money. That's the way it works.

But no, everyone is running to Congress asking for relief. "Our economy will tank if we don't take action" scream the masses. WTF?! Was anyone complaining when the financial sector and average Americans were making illogical profits? Nope.

I, the conservative fiscal guy, lose money when I spend more than I make. I lose money when I buy illogical investments that fail to grow in value. When a stock craters that I own, I take a loss. When I buy a home and it loses value because the general housing industry collapses, I pay the bill because I personally accepted the financial and legal risk.

So why the hell do some Americans feel like they should get special dispensation from their government when their stupid investments go south? They made stupid decisions and now must pay the piper. The government won't pay for their mistake. I DO!! I'm the honest, fiscally conservative guy who pays for this mess with higher taxes. I get no benefit from this fiasco. The only people who do are the bankers who made huge profits and now want dispensation as their Ponsi scheme fails. The people who benefit from government intervention are those who made poor business decisions relative to ARMs and no/little down payment home purchases who now want government assistance.

Wonder why many believe America's era as the world leader is coming to an end? Because we as a society have become consumers, not creators, and when we engage in fiscally illogical follies (the dot com boom/bust, the housing boom/bust, the emerging commodity boom/bust) we just run to the government to bail us out. The problem is that our government is bailing us out with our own money, or worse, with debt that has to be repaid in the future. China, India, the EU, and others create more than they consume. We inflate value to create pseudo-growth that in time is always revealed as illogical.

Whatever happened to basic fiscal responsibility? Make more than you earn? Invest in logical, grounded items that appreciate. Win by superior intellect, hard work, and a good old dose of personal responsibility? Innovation and value create worth and appreciation.

Congress vexes me yet again. Personal and corporate responsibility appear to be alluding us in the pursuit of election year voter pandering...

Warning. Snarky and bitter comment follows:
And by the way, the small cadre of us folks who didn't chase irrational profits in real estate during the boom will now be bidding on homes and vacation properties at the rational price for these properties. While we might be pissed, I didn't say we were stupid.

Time for Hilary to say goodbye

It's May 11. Less than six months until the most important Presidential election in the last twenty eight years. Twenty eight years ago America was suffering from significant economic, social, and foreign policy failures. Americans came out in force and rebooted the system. Twenty eight years later, it is time to reboot the system again.

The last eight years are littered with economic, social, and foreign policy failures. We are the laughing stock of the free world relative to our "invade first, ask questions later" foreign policy. I wouldn't be surprised if Bush made Luxembourg an "Axis of Evil" in a fit of geographic stupidity. The dollar is a free fall because we fail to invest in technology, schools, basic science, and industry to make America competitive on the world stage. We don't have enough funds for these efforts in part because we have to buy munitions for wars our citizenry doesn't support. And Bush is in office only because the majority vote doesn't count anymore. Well, it never did, but that's another matter ;-)

So it's time for a reboot. Twenty eight years ago the Republicans swept out the initiative exhausted Democrats. This year it's time for the Democrats to do the same thing to the morally and initiative bankrupt Republicans.

But there is a problem! Instead of focusing on the finish line, the Democrats have two candidates fighting amongst themselves for the nomination. The Democrats are slinging mud at each other while in the near-dead McCain goes unfettered towards the big night. While I believe Obama can beat McCain with one hand tied behind his back and a loosely affiliated preacher spewing God knows what off to the side, Hilary Clinton versus McCain is not so easily predicted. Hilary has more baggage than a cruise ship headed for the Caribbean. She fails to ignite large parts of the Democratic party, and conservatives have a huge reserve of material to use against her in a general election.

I almost lost all faith in the American political system when Gore was denied the last presidency. We instead re-elected the village idiot to be our President, except the majority of Americans who voted didn't support that decision. I'm not inherently against a Republican candidate, but it is time to sweep aside eight years of ridiculous and embarrassing behavior on the part of our Congress and President. Let's give another party the chance to clean up Washington. And to do this, we need the best possible Democratic candidate running for President now, not the Democratic nomination. We need the candidate that has the best chance of securing not only the majority vote, but also the votes of the Electoral College. That candidate is Obama.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs

The music industry needs a swift kick to the head. Instead of promoting new acquisition models for consumers to connect with music, their great contribution to the music scene over the last few years is the RIAA and suing the pants off people who like music. Yes, there is a difference between piracy and sampling music, but you don't greet the biggest change in the music distribution model over the last thirty years with a the broad side of a stick.

Rock Band is a perfect example. I've been singing songs with my kids over the last few hours, and already rushed to iTunes to buy a song I hadn't listened to before! "Maps" from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.



Hey fat cat music executives. Get out of the glass house and embrace the digital era. Find new distribution models like Rock Band, subscription music services, and intuitive ways for users to share songs between iPods. If you don't, you'll end up in the poor house while others take over your business. The music doesn't respect artificial boundaries put in place to support your old fashioned ways.

Sincerely,
Man with over 600+ CDs, 150+ iTunes songs, and even a few DVD-As all purchased from you.

PS - Making sure I can't share the official video of this song on my web site via YouTube copy protection did not +1 your cred, you freakin idiots!

It's almost here

It's almost time. A small group representing the entire Java team has been working on a keynote to open JavaOne. This keynote should clearly tell the world where Java is going. It should inspire. It should clarify. It should be fun!

I really believe in the vision and strategy we're going to present tomorrow. The lion-share of the hard work attributable to this keynote goes to the engineers who created the amazing demos that people will see tomorrow, Andreas for taking our rough concepts and polishing them into a great speech, and Rich for delivering the speech in the fashion only a true leader can do.

I get to spend a minute or two on stage delivering a particularly interesting demo, which is exciting. The real excitement for me, however, is seeing how people internalize and react to our strategy. After the keynote and press conference, it's on to three days of press and partner meetings. And hopefully a stiff drink and some sleep!

10 hours until the keynote.

Thanks Apple!

I've been crazy busy getting ready for JavaOne, but I want to shout out to Apple thanking them for the release of Java SE 6 for Mac OS X!

The entire Sun Java team is appreciative of the Apple team's hard work to get this release out. Thank you.