Utah Open Source Planet

Greg Curtis and John Valentine, House Speaker and Senate President (click to enlarge)

I'm at the Utah State Party Convention this morning. There are literally thousands of people here. Traffic was backed up off the exit ramp near UVU (where the convention is being held). The convention just opened at 10am, but even at 8am, the parking lots were full. People come early to pick up their credentials and wander the candidate booths.

I enjoyed wandering around and talking to a bunch of folks who I normally don't get to see. Lots of old friends and acquaintances here.

Chris Cannon running for Congress in the Third District (click to enlarge)

We start with prayer, the flag ceremony, the pledge of allegiance, and the national anthem. Carmen Rasmusen Herbert sang the national anthem and it was very nice. She's married to Gary Herbert's (Lt Gov) son Bradley, for what it's worth.

The Utah Republican party has a set of banners up and buttons playing on the "i can" in "republican." "I can provide students an excellent education," "I can give my family a great life," and so on. Very clever and emphasizes the Republican ideal of self sufficiency.

Opening ceremony at the convention (click to enlarge)

After the opening, we had a credentials report and adopted the rules and agenda for the convention. As usual, there was drama around Mike Ridgeway. Apparently Salt Lake county refused to seat him has a delegate and there was a motion to allow him to be seated at the State convention. It failed. I'm sure there will be more.

We've now moved to the district breakouts. District 3 stayed in the main hall, so I just sat still. The candidates I consider serious contenders in District 3 are Chris Cannon, the incumbent, David Leavitt, and Jason Chaffetz. There's also Joe Fergeson and Stone Fonua who haven't raised much money and haven't been heard from by delegates. They'll get their seven minutes of fame this morning. Fergeson is campaigning against the North American Union and Fonua is campaigning for something called "the Peacemaker."

Jason Chaffetz has raised around $70,000. David Leavitt raised twice that many and Chris Cannon has doubled Leavitt. Not surprising since Chris is the incumbent.

I'm torn between these three. I believe them all to be good men with Utah's best interest at heart. They aren't that far apart politically. I know Chris and Jason well. I've spoken to them several times over the course of the campaign. I don't know David Leavitt, but have tremendous respect for his brother Mike (current Secretary of HHS).

When I ran in my caucus meeting, I told the people there I'd base my vote for congressman on the basis of their support for Larry Lessig's Change Congress. I've had the opportunity to speak to both Chris and Jason about this and they were both supportive of two of the four pledges. Chris didn't think eliminating PAC money was practical, but was in favor of limiting all contributions to less than $300.

Why didn't I speak to David Leavitt about Change Congress? It's partly my fault: I went to only one event where he spoke. But it's partly his fault as well. He's been largely unavailable. Several attempts to get a message to him about Change Congress through his staff failed to elicit any response.

In fact, one of the things that's turned me off about Leavitt's campaign is that it's been much more impersonal than campaigns I'm used to. Lots of events to hear him speak and lots of literature, but not much personal contact. This morning for example, Chris and Jason were both at their booths (and I've got photos to prove it). Where was Leavitt? I don't know. I wandered around the entire center and didn't see him once.

I wasn't overly impressed with David Leavitt's speech. Some shouting at inopportune times. Jason gave a great speech, but his calling global warming a farce turned me off. Of course, I'm not sure Cannon or Leavitt feel much different. Both Cannon and Leavitt started their speeches with videos. Cannons was probably the best, but I liked that Chaffetz didn't have one. Cannon's speech was good: he talked about his background and how he got where he is.

Cannon is a supporter of eVerify, which I think is a big mistake. Of course, you can't find anyone who you agree with on everything--unless you're the candidate. That might not work either. I've known some candidates who I'm sure argued with themselves.

Time to vote!

I voted for Chris Cannon. I know some people will disagree with that vote so let me say why:

• Chris was willing to support important aspects of the Change Congress pledges, including big support for transparency. He even took the time to meet personally with me on the pledge and talk about it.
• Chris has been a good friend to technology. Many technologists in the state who I know and trust are firm supporters of Chris Cannon. I've talked to Chris several times about technology issues and he's well informed and thinks carefully about them.

Now we're listening to speeches for statewide office. The only interesting race is for Treasurer. Go figure.

Ballot boxes (click to enlarge)

Gov. Huntsman spoke about his accomplishments. He made it clear he only intends to serve one more term (if he's elected, of course). Chuck Smith, running against Huntsman, gave a good speech and seems to have some good ideas, but he's not going to win. There's been no campaign to speak of.

Mark Walker is a former legislator with little experience in financial management. Richard Ellis is currently the Deputy Treasurer and a former directory of the Governors Office for Planning and Budget. But Ellis has been roundly criticized by the legislature and has little support there. I think it's more than Walker being "one of our own" with the legislature. I think Ellis has seriously made many of them mad with things he's said and done. Of course, I know how that feels. :-)

The Utah County Treasurer nominated Richard Ellis and said Ed Alter (current Treasurer had planned to do it, but was unavailable.) The nomination focused on Ellis' experience. Gordon Snow (Majority Whip) seconded the nomination. Ellis spoke about what he's done in the Treasurer's office: financial and technical innovation. Ellis gave a good speech.

Balloons waiting to fall above my head (click to enlarge)

David Clark, Majority Leader, nominated Walker. He noted Walker's integrity. John Valentine (Senate President) seconded. Mark Shurtleff and Ron Bishop (1st District Congressman) also spoke for Walker. He emphasized more investment of public funds for larger returns. It's interesting that our conservative legislature supports a less conservative financial manager for treasurer. He emphasizes his private sector experience--although he doesn't get specific since he has no financial experience that I've heard about. He seems to be running largely on his Republican credentials.

Results: Merrill Cook, Bill Dew, and Brian Jenkins advanced to the run off ballot for District 2. In District three, David Leavitt received 220 votes, Jason Chaffetz received 469 votes, and Chris Cannon received 338 votes. They'll all go to the second ballot. The other two received almost no support, so unless people change their vote, I'd expect to see Jason and Chris go to a third ballot. We could be here all day...

The conventional wisdom is that a vote for Leavitt or Chaffetz is a vote against Cannon. But that's not the case. In fact, I saw Leavitt and Cannon talking in the hall and the word going around the floor is that Leavitt is asking his delegates to vote for Cannon. Of course, that won't keep the final outcome from going to a primary vote in June. In fact, it would take a huge swing either way to avoid that. Greg Curtis, Speaker of the House, predicted 55% Chaffetz, 45% Cannon. I think it might be closer than that.

I snagged a seat at the press table: power and a table to put my computer on. Sweet!

While we were waiting for the second ballot to be counted, Senators Hatch and Bennett spoke. Basically cheerleading for Republicans. That's OK--this is the right crowd for it to be sure. Hatch says: "I was a Mitt Romney supporter, but that's over. If you can't get behind McCain, you might as well turn the election over to Barack Obama. That would be a catastrophe for the judiciary." Hatch says McCain will appoint the right kind of judges and that alone is a good enough reason to support John McCain. Hatch gets a standing ovation. No doubt that the man is popular with this crowd.

Along with all of these are the usual controversies surrounding voting and credentialing procedures. Some older and disabled delegates had a tough time getting to the ballot boxes apparently.

A row of Macs at the press table (click to enlarge)

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff and State Auditor Auston Johnson were elected by acclamation since they're running unopposed. We watched a McCain video. Mark Shurtleff spoke after showing us a video. I presume it's been prepared for the general election. Shurtleff gave a god talk and got a standing ovation. Balloons dropped. Basically anything to fill the time while they count votes.

The bags filled with balloons were hung above the press table, so they all fell on the floor around the press and not on the delegates.

Argh. Now we're doing party constitution changes. What fun. In the middle of the second amendment, someone went down and there was a call for a medic. There was a division called on the second amendment to replace winner take all with proportional representation in future presidential primaries. The amendment failed.

There will be a third ballot for the 2nd and 3rd Districts. In the 3rd District, Leavitt got 161 votes, Chaffetz got 529 votes, and Cannon got 356 votes in the second round. That gives Chaffetz over 50%, but he needs 60% to avoid a runoff. That's 630 votes it everyone stuck around and will vote on the third ballot. He needs 100 of Leavitt's votes to win outright.

People in Leavitt shirts are walking through the hall carrying Cannon signs. They're getting boo'd and the Rules Chairman is asking them to leave since campaigns are not allowed to campaign in the convention hall itself.

I'm going to go get ready to vote. They're not going to open the ballot boxes until we've heard the Bylaw changes because they're afraid people might leave. Ya think!?!

Jason Chaffetz running for Congress in the Third District (click to enlarge)

The first bylaw amendment is to allow the delegates that are bound to Mitt Romney to vote for McCain. People cheered wildly after the speech against the change. People here still love Romney. Someone made a motion to postpone he amendment indefinitely. Everyone really just wants to vote and go home, I think.

In the end, for the 3rd District, Jason Chaffetz came within 9 votes of being the nominee and not having have a primary with Chris Cannon on June 24th. The final tally was Chaffetz 59%, Cannon 41%. What a finish. I'll bet there's some Chaffetz supporters who went home early and are kicking themselves right now.

Tags: utah politics republican

Props to Rachel Strate, an Analyst from Epic Ventures (formerly Wasatch Ventures) who has offered to represent her Firm in providing food and drinks for the Social Media Developers Garage event on Tuesday. Rumor has it that they will be providing Pizza and drinks so come if anything for a free meal! The topic for the event will be a demonstration by Bungee on creating a Facebook App using their Google App Engine Killer, Bungee Connect. We’ll try to play some Wii afterwards as well.

Again, a big thanks to Epic Ventures for the food and Bungee Labs for hosting the event! If you would like to host or provide food for a future event (or even speak!) please let me know and we’ll make sure your company gets credit. This is a great opportunity for your company to get in front of a group of developers, bloggers and Social Media Evangelists for more exposure and future recruiting events.

If your in the greater Salt Lake area and love python swing by the meeting this evening! We’re doing a python editor head-to-head, should be fun!

Here are the details (there is also a calendar):

Utah OpenSUSE user group wiki page

I’m thinking about starting a series on this blog of hot startups that I find interesting in Utah. I’d really like to show to the world the great startup scene that Utah has to offer - hopefully other bloggers in the area can pitch in and join in this effort as well. I am relatively new to Utah, and am just getting to know the scene out here, so please don’t take this the wrong way. My hope is that this is only because I’m new to the area - honestly, I only know of one or two established startups. I know of many that are “in the works”, but only a few have an actual business model with customers and revenue stream (or venture/private equity/angel funding to hopefully get to that revenue stream). I’m hoping I am just not “in the know”.

Do you have an up-and-coming startup you’d like me to feature? Do you know of any that stand out to you? I really am hoping those in Utah can step out of the woodwork and share via the comments (I monitor FriendFeed as well so you can also comment there) what you know. I hope to then pick out the best and try to get the word out about what you’re doing. Speak up, or forever hold your peace!

So, if you live in the greater Salt Lake City area, there’s a pretty cool low key (and free!) conference coming up, the Utah Code Camp. I’ll be doing a little talk on getting data out of HTML with Python (utilizing lxml and twill). If your interested, you can register here.

Not Getting Things Done (click to enlarge)

There was a pretty big crowd at this morning's CTO Breakfast. Sam Curran had spent some time building an application on Google App Engine, so we had him demo his app and show us the code.

Overall, Google Apps looks like a very nice piece of infrastructure for building Web applications. The database integration with Big Table and Google's authentication platform add some good tools for quickly building applications.

We got into a pretty large discussion of the pros and cons of Google Apps, Amazon Web services, dedicated hosting, and so on. None of these services are directly competitive. They're complimentary in many respects. You could imagine many applications that would make use of all of them.

Speaking of Sam's application: a few days ago, I mentioned to Sam, Bryant and Devlin, that I liked putting things on lists because then I could get them out of my mind and if I lost the list, I never had to do them. A guilt-free way of not getting things done. The problem with online todo lists is they don't forget. I hate that! Sam picked up on that for his app and created a task list for people consumed with the guilt of unfinished tasks: Not Getting Things Done. Just put your tasks on the list and forget about them!

Tags: cto breakfast utah events web+services google python

It's time for another Utah CTO Breakfast. This Thursday at 8am at the Novell cafeteria (building G). We're a little early this month due to my imminent trip to China. Please bring any topics that have struck your fancy this month.

All are invited--the only entrance requirement is an interest in high-tech companies and products.

Here's a schedule of future events:

• Apr 17 (Thursday)
• May 30 (Friday)
• June 27 (Friday)
• July 18 (Friday)
• No breakfast in August
• Sept 25 (Friday)

I have created a Google Calendar with dates for the CTO breakfast that you can subscribe to.

Or if you'd rather subscribe from iCal or Outlook, here's the iCalendar link.

Tags: utah cto breakfast events

I just got back from my precinct caucus meeting (Republican) where I was elected by my friends and neighbors as precinct Vice Chair for the coming two years. I was conducting the meeting as Chair.

I love caucus meetings. This is true grassroots politics. Everyone asking question, voting for delegates to the state and county conventions, paper ballots. There's some good discussion and great participation.

I'm always shocked at how few people, relatively speaking, attend. We had a better turn out than I ever remember, but there were still only around 50 people there out of around 2000 in our precinct. Just showing up gives you a huge voice.

As for me, I ran on a platform of making my vote for congressional representative in Utah's Third district contingent on the degree to which the candidate was willing to take the Change Congress pledge. I explained the four points of the pledge, why I thought they were important, and how while I don't believe that there's general corruption problem in Congress, that I do believe money changes things and we need to find ways to reduce its influence. I felt like there was overwhelming support for that stance.

Tags: politics utah

The CTO Breakfast will be held this Thursday, March 27 at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria (Building G). Anyone interested in high-tech and product development is welcome. The discussion is free-form, so feel free to bring some topics to discuss.

Here is a list of upcoming meetings:

• Apr 17 (Thursday)
• May 30 (Friday)
• June 27 (Friday)

Please get them on your calendar!

Tags: utah events cto breakfast

Utah will hold caucus meetings tonight for the purpose of selecting delegates to the county and state conventions. Your voice is amplified many times over by being part of the process that decides who's on the ballot rather than just selecting from a few candidates in November.

The caucus meeting with be with people in your neighborhood--probably people you know. You can find out what precinct you live in by clicking here. Then you can visit the Republican or Democratic Web sites to determine where you should go. (If you're a member of a party other than these two, find your party Web site for caucus locations.)

Once you know where to go, just show up. Both the Republicans and Democrats are meetings at 7pm. You'll find it's a pretty friendly atmosphere. If you want to run as a delegate, it helps to take some friends with you who will vote for you. Being a delegate does take time and involve some meetings (not to mention the conventions themselves) but is a great way to further amplify your voice.

Personally, I'm planning to talk about Lessig's Change Congress movement (I wrote about it while I was at ETech) and my commitment to preferentially vote for candidates willing to take at least part of the Change Congress pledge. If enough delegates did this, we could at least change the part of Congress we're responsible for in Utah.

Tags: utah events politics

I was chosen, for the fifth year in a row, as a member of vSpring Capital's v|100 list. Actually, the reason I started Kynetx was so that I wouldn't get kicked off the v|100. :-) The list is supposed to be of people most likely to start a high-tech business in the next five years, I figured this was my last year before people would start getting suspicious.

From the announcement:

The v|100 was created in 2004 by vSpring Capital as a tool to recognize outstanding entrepreneurs who have ties to the state of Utah. Members of the v|100 become part of a community of entrepreneurs that fosters collaboration and support among its members as they build and grow some of the most exciting companies. Each year, vSpring asks members of the Utah business community to nominate individuals who are most likely to lead a successful startup technology venture in the next five to seven years in a c-level executive role. Those nominees who garner the most votes from their peers in a nominee-only second step of the annual voting process are then elected into the v|100.

"The number of nominations submitted this year exceeds all previous years and we are pleased with the results that the v|100 voting process produces," said Paul Ahlstrom, managing director of vSpring Capital. "New venture creation is critical to the growth of our economy, and the v|100 program consistently identifies individuals who are likely to generate successful ventures in the coming years. The quality of the v|100 recipients is an indication of the vibrancy of Utah's entrepreneurial ecosystem and talent pool," Ahlstrom said.

From 2008 Top 100 Venture Entrepreneurs @ SYS-CON Media
Referenced Mon Mar 17 2008 10:18:55 GMT-0600 (MDT)

I'm honored to be part of the list. It's a good group of people to be associated with and vSpring does things with the v|100 that ensures its more than just a list.

Tags: venture+capital utah awards

We'll have the CTO breakfast tomorrow morning (Feb 28) at 8am in the Novell cafeteria (Provo Campus). Follow the link for directions.

Despite it's name, you don't have to be a CTO to attend--just interested in technology, where it's headed, and the problems of starting and building a high-tech business in Utah.

Here are future dates for your calendar:

• Mar 27 (Thursday)
• Apr 17 (Thursday)
• May 30 (Friday)

Tags: cto breakfast utah events

Fran Allen delivers Organick Lecture (click to enlarge)

Fran Allen was the Turing Award winner for 2006. This afternoon she's giving the University of Utah's Organick Memorial Lecture. I've reported on some of these in the past few years:

• Jim Gray on Distributed Computing Economics
• Vint Cerf on Internet Challenges
• Alan Kay: Is Computer Science an Oxymoron?
• Alan Kay: The 100 Dollar Laptop and Powerful Ideas
• Jeannette Wing on Computational Thinking

I try to come every year. I find it's something I'm inspired by each time.

The grand goal of high performance computers right now is a 1 petaflop machine. This requires 1,000,000 gigaflop processors. Wow. She shows a semilog plot of peak speed vs year introduced that is a linear line (Moore's law at work).

Much of Allen's work in the 80's and early 90's was around the PTRAN system of analysis for parallelism. The techniques are used, for example in the optimization stage of IBM's XL family of compilers.

Because more and more transistors are being placed on chips, they're using more and more energy--getting hotter. Part of the solution--which we're seeing play out--is multi-core chips. This requires parallelism to achieve the performance users expect. But making use of multi-codes requires that tasks be organized by either users or software to run in parallel.

By 2021, there will be chips with 1024 cores on them. Is parallelism the tool that will make al these ores useful? John Hennessey has called it the biggest challenge Computer Science has every faced. He has credentials that might make you believe him. Allen says that it's also the best opportunity that Computer Science has to improve user productivity, application performance and system integrity.

For parallel (superscalar, etc.) architectures, compilers--software--have been used to automatically manage scheduling tasks so that they can operate in parallel. What about those techniques will be useful in this new world of multi-cores?

Allen says we need to get rid of C--soon. C, as a language, doesn't provide enough information to the compiler for it to figure out interdependencies--making it hard to parallelize. Another way to look at it is that pointers allow programmers to build programs that can't be easily analyzed to find out which parts of the program can be executed at the same time.

Another factor that makes parallelization hard is data movement. Allen offers no silver bullet. The latency of data movement inhibits high performance.

The key is the right high level language that can effectively take advantage of the many good scheduling and pipelining algorithms that exist. If we don't start with the right high level language, those techniques will have limited impact.

She presents some research from Vivek Sarkar on compiling for parallelism. Only a small fraction of application developers are experts in parallelism. Expecting them to become such is unreasonable. The software is too complex and the primary bottleneck in the usage of parallel systems. X10 is an example of a language (object oriented) that tries to maximize the amount of automatic parallel optimization that can be done.

Major themes include cross-procedure parallelization, data dependency analysis, control dependency analysis, and then using those analyses to satisfy the dependencies while maximizing parallelism.

Useful parallelism depends on the run time behavior of the program (i.e. loop frequency, branch prediction, and node run times) and the parameters of the target multiprocessor. Finding the maximal parallelism isn't enough because it probably can't be efficiently mapped on the multiple cores or processors. There is a trade off between the partition cost and the run time. Finding the intersection gives the right level of parallelism--the level that is the most efficient use of available resources. Interprocedural analysis is the key to whole program parallelism.

One of the PTRAN analysis techniques was the transform the program into a functional equivalent that used static single assignment. This, of course, is what functional programming enthusiasts have been saying for years: one of functional programming's biggest advantages is that functional programs--those without mutation--are much more easily parallelized than imperative programs (including imperative-based object oriented languages).

There's a long list of transformations that can be done--everything from array padding to get easily handled dimensions to loop unrolling and interleaving. Doing most of these transformations well requires detailed knowledge of the machine--making it a better job for compilers than humans. Even then, the speedup is less than the number of additional processors applied o the job. That is, applying 4 processors doesn't get you a speedup of 4--more like 2.2. The speed up--at present--is asymptotic.

Tags: events utah parallel+computing programming+languages functional+programming

Wow! Thanks to Roland Smith for pointing me at Idaho's road reports site. It's built on Google Maps and totally kicks Utah's butt. Lots more information on almost every road in the state. Very nice.

Tags: utah egovernment

My daughter called me from Heber this afternoon to tell me she'd be late getting home because Highway 189 through Provo Canyon was closed. I went out to the Internet to try and find out what was going on and was pretty disappointed.

The primary site for road conditions is CommuterLink, run by the Utah Department of Transportation. When this site launched with much fanfare in 2001, just in time for the Olympics, it was state of the art. Now it's looking pretty tired. I found my self wishing they'd just used Google maps. In fact, for traffic information, that's what I do since Google maps gets the traffic data, but they don't show road closures.

I tried googling provo canyon avalanche and found this nice little news article from news.utah.gov. Only one small problem--can you tell which day this is for? I can't. It's not even encoded in the URL. Argh.

The CommuterLink site is a good example of why it's hard for government to build Web applications. Web applications are products and as such they require constant update in a world where there's no reward for doing the work. A better option for government is to be the provider of data and let the private sector build the applications.

As for my daughter, I sent her home through Parley's canyon and Salt Lake. She was headed to Draper anyway tonight, so no lost time and a certain outcome on the road. Provo Canyon's still closed as far as I can tell from clicking the Emergency Alerts button (which for some strange reason returns PDF...huh?!?)

Tags: egovernment utah

Now that CompUSA is closing, there are no decent places in Utah to buy electronics. Not that CompUSA was a dream store by any means, but at least it was something. There's BestBuy and Circuit City, but they're not the same--they just don't have a good assortment of disks, video cards, cases, memory, etc.

Scott Lemon has begun a campaign to convince Fry's Electronics to open a store in Utah. He's proposing we send them emails asking them to locate a store here. Here's the message:

To: feedback@frys.com; service@outpost.com; press@outpost.com
Subject: Open a Fry's Electronics in Utah

Body: I am writing to you to request that you consider opening a Fry's Electronic store here in Utah. I am part of a large and growing community of people who can appreciate the value that your store could bring to our state. With the closure of CompUSA, we are now left with no real source for electronic and technology products. The Utah population is continuing to grow, and many large retailers - like Ikea - are moving into the state. Please consider our state as a great location for the next Fry's Electronics store that you open, and feel free to contact me if there is anything I can do to support your efforts to open here.

Or, if you're lazy, just click this link:

You probably ought to personalize it a little. :-)

Tags: utah

There's been quite a bit of discussion lately on the PLUG and SLLUG mailing lists about HB 139: Wireless Internet Access Requirements, which is being sponsored in the Legislature by Rep. Bradley Daw (R - Orem).

In a nutshell, HB 139 would require anyone providing public wireless internet access (restaurants, libraries, the public XMission access in downtown Salt Lake, etc.) to restrict access to adults by requiring a credit card or government issued ID, and hold the provider liable if kids access any "harmfui" material over their wireless networks.

Now, I suppose that Rep. Daw has the best of intentions in sponsoring this bill. After all, most of us agree that we shouldn't make porn available to kids (and we'd rather not make it easily accessible for anyone else, either). But this bill won't do that. Lots of kids already have access to credit cards, or at least debit cards or Visa gift cards (which would probably be enough to get in). What the bill will do is make public wifi too risky for most businesses to provide. Some public wireless providers have already stated as much: if the bill passes, public wifi will go away.

So, what to do about this?

• Write to Rep. Daw: bdaw@utah.gov
• Write to your own representative
• Go to a meeting at the Capitol this Thursday:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: HB 139 - WIRELESS INTERNET ACCESS
Date: Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:36:19 -0700
From: Bradley Daw <bdaw@utah.gov>

I will be hosting a meeting here in the Capitol on Thursday, January
31st at 3:00 P.M.  We will be discussing House Bill 139 about public
wireless access.  I will be in attendance along with some members of the
Attorney General's staff and members of the Xmission ISP staff.  Anyone
is invited to attend, and please let us know if you will be able to.

The meeting will be held in the East (Senate) Building, in the Beehive
room which is just south of the cafeteria on the first floor.  I hope to
see you there.

My friend Mike Smullin (who BTW is an excellent developer of custom Wordpress plugins) sent me this:

Hi Jordy,

Not sure how much you like WordPress or Matt Mullenweg, but I figured I’d let you know about this upcoming event in Utah:

http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/416950/?ps=5

Enjoy! :)

This sounds like it’s going to be a fun event.  I hope to see you there.

Utah Capitol Building (click to enlarge)

Utah will participate in the Super Tuesday presidential primary on February 5th (as do 23 other states). Then on March 25th, we'll hold the regular statewide caucus meetings to elect delegates to the state conventions later in the year. I'm Republican Precinct Chair for Lindon 4. I'll let you know where the caucus meeting will be held when I have that information. In the meantime, here's some important dates:

• Jan 29 - Last day for walk-in registration - Last minute voter registration is available for the new voter to register in person at the County Elections office located at 100 E Center, Suite 3100 in Provo. Hours: Monday - Friday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m. If you're not registered yet, there's still a few days left.

• Jan 22 - Feb 1 - Early Voting - There are two locations in Utah County (other counties call he Elections Office at 801-851-8128):

  • Utah County Building, 100 E Center St Rm. L900 (basement level), Provo Hours: Now - Feb 1st Weekdays 8 - 5 p.m.
  • American Fork Library, 64 S 100 E, American Fork Hours: Now - Jan 31st 3 -7 p.m. and Feb 1st 12 - 5 p.m.

  Any registered voter may vote at either of these locations during the Early Voting period. To be eligible to Early Vote you must show a picture ID. Having to show ID is stupid, but I don't make the rules.

• Feb 5 - Presidential Primary - Click for election locations. If you have any questions you may call the Elections Office at 801-851-8128.

• Mar 25 - Statewide Republican Party Caucuses - Statewide caucuses on Tuesday, March 25 at 7 p.m. The election of a delegate is the first step in the partisan election process in Utah.

  The delegates elected in a precinct will hold the power to vote on behalf of the approximately 1250 voters in their precinct at the statewide party conventions in May. If enough citizens don't turn out, a few "special interest" people end up controlling the vote for delegates -- if special interest people become the delegates, they won't represent the interests of the majority of the precinct. Please come.

  Precinct boundaries have changed in some areas, please check your registration cards sent to you to verify your new precinct information. If you have any questions about your precinct boundaries, call the Elections Office 801-851-8128 or check online.

In Utah, where the Republican candidate wins 80-90% of the time, participating in the process to choose the candidate is extremely important. If you just show up and vote in November, you're not really doing much. Be part of the process.

Tags: utah politics

This Thursday is the CTO Breakfast! We've got a few really cool things lined up:

• Scott Lemon is going to give a short tutorial on writing Facebook applications
• Scott also is going to bring his XO Laptop (one laptop per child)

OK, so basically, it's the Scott Lemon show. But I'm sure it will lead to plenty of good discussion. So come prepared to learn and to talk about the cool things you've seen since last we met.

The breakfast is at the Novell Cafeteria (Building G). It's not as far as you think! Really. I promise. Try it and see. You can find directions here.

The meetings begin at 8am and generally last until 9:30 or so. Here are the future dates:

• Feb 28 (Thursday)
• Mar 27 (Thursday)
• Apr 17 (Thursday)
• May 30 (Friday)

There's a Google calendar of the CTO Breakfast for your convenience.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events xolaptop facebook

There are a number of major technical events coming up in Salt Lake City in February. It is not often that premier computer science research conferences come to Salt Lake City, as opposed to Boston, Austin, Seattle, or the Bay Area. John Carter am the General Chair of the HPCA conference and got the IEEE to locate it here. Also convinced PPoPP to co-locate their conference here. All of the events below, except the Organick Lectures, will be at the Marriott City Center in SLC (next to Gallivan Plaza downtown).

• Feb 16-20: 14th International Symposium on High Performance Computer Architecture. HPCA is one of the premier computer architecture research conferences.
• Feb 20-23: 13th ACM SIGPLAN Symposium on Principles and Practices of Parallel Programming. PPoPP is one of the premier research conferences focused on parallel programming and parallel systems.
• Feb 20-21: The University of Utah will be hosting its annual Organick Memorial Lecture series. This year's speaker is Dr. Fran Allen, IBM Fellow Emeritus and this year's ACM Turing Award winner.

There are a number of interesting tutorials and workshops associated with HPCA or PPoPP:

• Feb 16: 12th Workshop on the Interaction between Compilers and Computer Architectures (INTERACT-12)
* Feb 16: Tutorial on Architectural Implications of Multiple Clock Domains Multiple Voltage Domains and Dynamic Voltage-Frequency Scaling (MCD/MVD/DVFS)
• Feb 17: 11th Workshop on Computer Architecture Evaluation using Commercial Workloads (CAECW-11)
• Feb 17: 1st International Workshop on Storage and I/O Virtualization, Performance, Energy, Evaluation and Dependability (SPEED 2008)
• Feb 17: 2nd Workshop on Computer Architecture Research Directions (CARD-2007)
• Feb 17: Tutorial: Power Management Solutions for Computer Systems
• Feb 17: Tutorial: High-Speed Network Architectures for Clusters: Designs and Trends
• Feb 23: 3rd ACM SIGPLAN Workshop on Transactional Computing (TRANSACT 2008)
• Feb 23: Tutorial: Parallel File Systems and I/O Middleware for Extreme-Scale Platforms

There will be a joint luncheon of HPCA and PPoPP on Feb 20th at which Fran Allen will be speaking. At least for now, only people registered for the conference are invited.

Tags: utah events conferences

The podcamp scheduled in Salt Lake for January 26th has been changed to March 29th. The location, Neumont University, is the same. I'm planning on going.

Tags: podcasting utah events

Each year, Dave Fletcher publishes a list of the top ten IT accomplishments in Utah state government. He notes that Utah.gov was selected as the #1 state portal in the country for the second time. Utah is the only state to have won that honor twice. There are now over 1030 online government services in Utah. Cool.

Tags: utah information+technology

Each year, Dave Fletcher publishes a list of the top ten IT accomplishments in Utah state government. He notes that Utah.gov was selected as the #1 state portal in the country for the second time. Utah is the only state to have won that honor twice. There are now over 1030 online government services in Utah. Cool.

Tags: utah information+technology

Ok, so some of you may have noticed I’ve been a little quiet lately, over this time of non-blogging I built up a dozen great ideas for entries, and collected the photos to flesh them out. However, I am far to lazy, so you all get this little summary post instead. Let me apologize upfront, these were all taken with a cruddy phone. I’ll have another post with my technical musings later this week.

1. Who knew Utah was so cool! After attending the Ubuntu-Utah group meeting, I was floored at how active the area was! Not only was the user group active, social and plenty fun, but I quickly learned about the Utah Open Source Foundation, which is (for lack of something more elegant) just plain awesome, the guys that run it could not be doing a better job. It was at a Multi-Distro Release Party (graciously hosted by Novell at their Open Source Technologies Center) that I caught this amusing moment, after Ubuntu is Linux for Human Beings, there aren’t age limits

   

2. Some (hopefully legal) shots of the Novell Provo campus, its quite nice:

   

   

3. Another fun tidbit about Salt Lake City, they have not only the best burrito joint on earth, but random neon orange flags at street crossings…

As we did introductions today, a surprising number of people were remodeling their basement (time of the year, I guess). Consequently we ended up talking about home theaters set ups for the first part of the meeting. Interesting tidbit: maximum run length for HDMI is 50 feet.

We talked about Facebook Beacon for a while. There was much more discussion of social networks in general than of Beacon for a while, but then we dove into the meat of the power of recommendations and the vast value in coloring the social graph with meta data--including trust data.

Kids see Myspace as being about who they are and Facebook as being about what their friends are doing. Some people want to see what happening in all aspects of their life on the Facebook page. That leads to problems with business applications on Facebook.

I'd brought Super Crunchers with me, intending to talk about it a little and the conversation went that direction without me even having to bring it up. The discussion of what companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google are doing with our data led to a discussion of methods.

We got talking about how screwed up TSA and airport security is. I brought up Steve Yegge's allegory of TSA and interface design. That's as close as I can come to making the discussion have something to do with IT. :-)

There was a great article in Wired on an amature terrorist hunter that made the point that the FBI can't do what matures can do because their

In fact, it's distinctly possible that Rossmiller, alone at her computer, has a better track record than the Justice Department. A Washington Post analysis in 2005 of the 400-plus people charged with terrorism-related crimes by the federal government found that only 14 of those convicted actually had any ties at all to al Qaeda or its network. Rossmiller's cases have come with solid backup, while the feeble evidence in the other high-profile Justice Department cases makes many prosecutors roll their eyes. Consider the seven Miami men arrested in the summer of 2006 and hyped as desiring to wage a "ground war" against the US and intending to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. They turned out to be a bunch of trash-talking blowhards whose plans were formulated while smoking pot in an empty warehouse. In contrast, the man Rossmiller most recently implicated --- Michael Reynolds --- had prepared meticulous plans to blow up pipelines and was shopping online for used gas trucks to implement his plot. The Pennsylvania resident was arrested after traveling 2,000 miles to southern Idaho, lured by Rossmiller into a supposed meeting with a financial backer.

"When I was in the White House and doing terrorism, the holy grail was 'actionable intelligence,' and she brings a form of actionable intelligence," says Roger Cressey, a White House counterterrorism official in both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. (He learned of Rossmiller after he left the government.) The FBI, on the other hand, has failed in every attempt to modernize its technology since 2001, and it so restricts the software available to agents that they can't even begin to match what Rossmiller does. "The FBI is a dinosaur in many respects," says Cressey.

Rossmiller agrees. "I went to a meeting in Great Falls, and we got to talking, and someone had to look something up online," she says. "I asked, 'What do you use for Internet access?' and one agent said, 'We have to go to the public library down the street.'"

She also tells a story about another agent who had to get permission to open a Yahoo account because it violated office regs. "They weren't allowed," she says.

From Behind Enemy Lines With a Suburban Counterterrorist
Referenced Thu Nov 29 2007 09:52:17 GMT-0700 (MST)

We got into a discussion about social graphs and reputation in law enforcement Scott and I have an upcoming Technometria interview with Dan Lulich of IOvation on using reputation to detect fraud online.

This looks interesting: a way to read your car's diagnostic data and get it on your computer. The last word: WD 1 terabyte drive for $264.99. Nearly down to $0.25/Gig.

Tags: cto breakfast utah events

The last CTO Breakfast of the year will be held this Thursday at 8am in the Novell Cafeteria. Despite it's name, you don't have to be a CTO to attend--just interested in technology, where it's headed, and the problems of starting and building a high-tech business in Utah. If you're reading this, you're invited.

Be sure to subscribe to the Google calendar for future events. Here's the next several:

• Jan 24 (Thursday)
• Feb 28 (Thursday)
• Mar 27 (Thursday)

For directions, see the CTO Breakfast page.

Tags: cto event breakfast utah

One of my colleagues at BYU, Chuck Knutson, has launched the Internet Safety podcast. If you're a parent wondering about tools and techniques for guiding your children's exploring, then check it out.

Tags: podcasts utah byu internet+safety

Clint Savage was the speaker at tonight's PLUG meeting. Clint is the founder of the Utah Open Source Foundation. UTOSF was the power behind the recent Utah Open Source Conference.

Clint ran down a long list of activities that UTOSF is sponsoring to promote open source in Utah. Some of the most promising, IMO, were promoting open source at local colleges and universities and open source family day. BYU's UUG sponsors Linux install fests, but I'm generally disappointed by the lack of interest in open source among CS students.

They mentioned the Home Runs in IT Conference that will be held at the Open Source Technology Center at Novell on Dec 6th. I'm flying home from San Jose the morning of the 6th from IIW to speak at noon. Sounds like it will be a good event.

Tags: utah events plug open+source linux

The Provo Linux User's Group meeting for November will be on the 14th at 7:30pm. Omniture is hosting, so head on over to Canyon Park Technology Center. I'm going to try to make it. Here's the announcement:

This is an exciting month for PLUG. We have a new meeting location: Omniture. Never before has the local FOSS community been stronger. The reach of groups like PLUG is growing beyond just a few computer hobbyists. Linux is now becoming the premiere solution for countless business tasks, rather than just an alternative one. If there was any doubt, it was dispelled with the recent runaway success of the first ever Utah Open Source Conference.

In line with the new growth trends in FOSS we have invited Clint Savage, president of the Utah Open Source Foundation to offer the first "State of Utah FOSS" presentation. This exciting new foundation is helping all of the Utah FOSS groups (like PLUG) take their groups to new heights. Come participate, grab a drink, shoot some pool, and meet the new players in the Utah open source industry!

Tags: utah events open+source linux

If you are a multilingual CS, EE, etc. student looking for a way to earn some Open Source street cred, I have a project for you! Alfresco, the leading Open Source Enterprise Content Management System, needs a few more language packs, or updates to existing ones.

To begin, just browse through our list of existing language packs, if you see one that is outdated, or see a language missing, download the base language pack (english). Translate the strings you find there and then submit them as an update or new project on the Alfresco Forge site. You can also join our community network where you can get access to recorded demos, whitepapers, hosted trial, etc.

And if you are in Utah, and interested in a demo/presentation to your user group,  ping me and we will organize a demo for you.

The Utah Open Source Foundation has a post on their site asking for suggestions for the keynote speaker for the 2008 Utah Open Source Conference. They've got a pretty good list already, and their poll is set up so visitors can vote for someone already on the list or add someone else.

Another reminder for the Multi-Distro Release Party being held this coming Saturday. Ubuntu (Gutsy Gibbon), Fedora (Werewolf) and OpenSUSE (10.3) will be available via network install.

Map: http://tinyurl.com/yprnqr
When: Saturday, November 10, 2007 1pm-5pm MDT
What: Installfest, pizza, drinks and more.

Cheers,

Clint Savage
The Utah Open Source Foundation, Open Source for Utah, and the world!

Hi all,

The Utah Open Source Conference 2007 was such a success. We’ve been busily recovering from all the work and joy we had and are ready to kick it into high gear for this year’s upcoming conference. As far as dates go, we’re looking in the same time frame (Late August, Early September 2008).

But there’s a larger question looming right now and we’d like your input on it. The question is:

Who would you like to come and keynote Utah Open Source Conference 2008?

We’ve thought of a few for you, but would like to have you submit names to us here on our blog. A poll has been created with a few obvious choices, and we’ll do what we can to get the winner here (if its not too cost prohibitive). So without further adieu, vote to your hearts content:

The following is a response to a comment made on an earlier blog post. I address it here partially because of it’s length, but mostly because I think it would be generally beneficial to lots of people who have doubts about Referendum 1.

@ Clint

Actually Referendum 1 will divert money away from public schools. The money being allocated may not be in the budget but it should be and that is the point. We could use this money to help fix our public schools.

Referendum 1 will not divert money from public schools. Even if it did, it would amount to .0025% of the education budget. That’s nothing, and putting so little money directly into public schools would solve nothing. This is not about the money, no matter how badly voucher haters want you think it is.

It seriously makes no sense to give up on our public school system.

Who’s giving up? Public schools will certainly have their place. Public and private schools are not mutually exclusive.

This money could be going to increase teacher’s pay. If we increased what teacher’s made it would be more of an incentive to go into the education field. We would get brighter and more qualified teachers.

Oh yes, if that .0025% raise goes directly to the teachers (which it wouldn’t), people will be absolutely clamoring for those jobs.

Here’s a real idea: why not create a market for those jobs so great teachers can choose whomever pays the best. A bigger market means more competition among employers, more competition among employers means increased teacher pay, and increased teacher pay together with increased competition means better teachers. Those are economic facts; it’s as simple as that.

If that were the case [that “we would get brighter and more qualified teachers”], we would also be able to reduce class sizes.

This bill will reduce class sizes, and it’ll do it for much cheaper.

Our children do not deserve to just be a number on a roll. We need to emphasize more one on one education and more time being spent on each child.

No kidding. Do you think anyone in the world disagrees with those arguments? Those are not points of differentiation, but as long as you’re trying to differentiate on points that everybody and their dog agrees on, you might think of adding: “No child should be force-fed summer sausages for mere amusement.”

I would argue that Referendum 1 protects your axioms better than the status quo: If any child really isn’t getting enough teacher face time, their parent will have reasonable alternatives so they can vote with their feet. Think about it.

Everyone who is for referendum one wants parents and kids to have a choice. The fact is they already do have a choice.

Exactly, one choice. As Henry Ford said: “The customer can have any color [Model T] he wants so long as it’s black”.

OK, I know you didn’t mean only one choice, but let’s face it: when the public school system limits you to any of its schools, that’s somewhat analogous to Del Taco saying you can eat anything in the world you want as long as you buy it from Del Taco’s dollar menu. That’s not choice.

Why do tax payers have to pay for someone else’s child to go to a private school?

On that note, why do taxpayers have to pay for any child to go to public school? The reason we subsidize education is that a educated populace is in everybody’s best interests. Granting a monopoly the exclusive right to those subsidies, on the other hand, is in almost nobody’s best interests.

But as long as we’re subsidizing, why not do it efficiently by offering smaller subsidies to children whose parents decide their needs are better served elsewhere? It really is that simple. For every poor kid that leaves a public school with a $3000 voucher, Utah taxpayers save about $4500.

Also, why should taxpayers who choose an alternative school have to pay twice? That’s a terrible price to pay to opt out of a system that (nationally) ranks 25th in the modernized world.

But something tells me the labor unions that are out to kill Referendum 1 aren’t really worried about tax increases. Indeed, their true interests lie in protecting their monopoly so as to continue to “own” education in America. This is much to the detriment of any parent who wants a