Ken Sletten <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>(1)  SIGImage/SQL customary agenda items (11:00 - 12:00):
>
>    [a]  The CSY R&D Database Lab will give their "State
>of the Product" update. While a whole raft of "strategic
>concerns" has grabbed the spotlight since 11-14, I think
>users will be pleasantly surprised at how much progress
>has been made on what were 10 outstanding items on the
>"Now / Soon Available in Image/SQL" list;  including
>some major enhancements to the IMAGE core.  The complete
>"Now / Soon" list will be handed out at the SIG meeting.

I want to express my public thanks for the hard work that
the TurboIMAGE Lab has done.  As part of the IMAGE/SQL
Advisory Committee (ISAC) and as a programmer who works
intimately with the bits and bytes of IMAGE/SQL, it has
always been a pleasure to work with HP's IMAGE/SQL Lab.



>(2)  "MPE and IMAGE users open forum" (12:00 - 13:00):
>
>...  To perhaps provide a
>catalyst for discussion, I throw out a few factoids and
>"homework assignments" as recommended reading prior to
>or just after getting to HPW:
>
>    [a]  In the 2002 Interex SIB (done after 11-14), the
>runaway winner (even though voters were restricted to
>casting only half of their votes for it) was: "Identify
>a way for users and developers to continue to run MPE
>in some supported fashion after end of HP sales and
>support, ....".  This got 1100 votes.
>
>    [b]  The # 2 vote getter on 2002 SIB was:  "Port MPE
>and it's subsystems to Intel or create an MPE emulator
>for Linux.  In the alternative, enable a third party to
>do so."  In response to the Interex SIB results, I think
>HP has already made it publicly and eminently clear that
>THEY have no plans to port MPE / IMAGE or create an
>emulator.  This means that if an emulator is going to
>happen a third-party will have to do it.  This item got
>631 votes.  Next highest item got 200 votes and drifted
>down from there.  This item along with [a] above got 49
>percent of ALL votes.


This reminds of the negotiations between Lance Armstrong
and the U.S. Postal Service.  For details, read his book
(or, better still, listen to the CDs as you commute),
"It's not about the bike".  Lance's French team (Cofides)
dropped him when his personal ecosystem was eroding (he
had a wicked cancer that was totally sapping his life away).
The U.S. Postal Service acted as a "prince" for Cinderello
(the masculine form of "Cinderella", I guess :-)

The "numbers" didn't look right for Lance.  Any
self-respecting manager (such as the Cofides official who
came to visit Lance in his hospital room) would have known,
of course, that the wisest decision was to kill Lance's
contract.  Naturally, that was the final decision that the
committee in charge approved.  Nobody could blame them for
their decision. The position that they reached after
considerable consideration was solid.  Their conclusion was
an unassailable resolution, full of determination.  They were
unwavering in the firmness of their action. Their decisiveness
was a textbook model and they spent a lot of time preparing
PowePoint presentations and professional-looking web pages.
Their resolve was exemplary.  Their resoluteness was
unimpeachable. What a successful project!  They all
congratulated themselves and gave nice pats on the back to
each other.

Unfortunately for the Cofides folks, Lance Armstrong went
on to win a certain number of Tour de France races (I am
not the quantitative type, so I don't recall how many,
exactly).  So much for "eroding ecosystems".  Naturally,
had Lance Armstrong not acted quickly and decidedly (with
the help of his mother, a remarkable woman who reminds me
of my very own mother), he would have had a swift EOL.

The last I heard, Lance was still going strong, having just
polished up this year's Tour de France.  I would be willing
to wash dishes for a month in a Paris restaurant just to
attend ONE top-management meeting of the Cofides team as
they discuss ecosystems.  Of course, ecosystems will die if
left to themselves (particularly if they have been totally
abandoned, to begin with).  As Lance Armstrong demonstrated,
ecosystems will thrive if enough caring people are allowed to
give all their tender love and attention to such given-up-as-dead
ecosystems.  Fortunately (for Lance -- not for Cofides), the
Cofides folks didn't have the power to prohibit Lance from
recovering his health *and* competing under a different
sponsor-prince.  Hmmm...  I would be willing to bet that the
Cofides managers sincerely wish that they had killed Lance's
ability to ride a bike again under a different prince's banner.


Time to go for a quick bike ride to check some aspen groves
as they turn yellow in the Sun Valley Autumn.  As Shakespeare
wrote about Fall ("That time of year") in his Sonnet LXXIII:

     That time of year thou mayst in me behold
     When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
     Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
     Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

     In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
     As after sunset fadeth in the west,
     Which by and by black night doth take away,
     Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

     In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
     That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
     As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
     Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.

     This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
     To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

   _______________
  |               |
  |               |
  |            r  |  Alfredo                     [log in to unmask]
  |          e    |                           http://www.adager.com
  |        g      |  F. Alfredo Rego
  |      a        |  Manager, R & D Labs
  |    d          |  Adager Corporation
  |  A            |  Sun Valley, Idaho 83353-3000            U.S.A.
  |               |
  |_______________|

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