Brandon Werner

Google just published some of the slides of the Google Scalability conference online that I attended last weekend and wrote a commentary about earlier this week. The two I’d like to call out are the GIGA+ file system (for storage geeks) and the Software Transactional Memory slides (for software geeks). Also, the ideas presented in the Wikipedia for Haskell / DHT I found really interesting as well.

Just consider it some light reading for your geek weekend.

When the sun comes out, it is the most beautiful city on earth (yes, I’ve been to Paris). The huge fresh water lakes sparkle. You see the snow covered mountains all around you; the smooth ones to the East and the sharper ones to the West. The grass and large evergreen trees are the greenest you’ve ever seen in your life, and the flowers the brightest. On Puget Sound, the salt water attracts the seagulls that lunge at and around you as the large sail boats glide across the water in tranquility. The Farmer’s Markets around town bring out the freshest fruit and the most amazing fish whose spiny flesh sparkles in the sun, which lasts well in to the late evening before descending in to the Sound in a warm banner of turquoise, orange and red. Families take the ferries out to the islands and watch the sun set from the cold but beautiful beaches, roasting marshmallows and looking out over the skyline of the city. Everyone remarks at how wonderful a choice they made to live here.

When there are clouds the sky is gray, the ocean is gray, the lakes are gray, and the trees are gray. You can’t see any mountains as the cloud cover is always dark and deep seated in the valleys. The strong, sharp winds take the drizzling rain sideways and the umbrellas out of the hands of their owners. Everyone remarks at how horrible a choice they made to live here.

They sit inside coffee houses and drink lattes and wonder why they ever left California or Wisconsin and contemplate going back home that moment - buying a ticket – hopping on a plane with just a suitcase and their life savings and going back to their family - or maybe live with their sister in Boston or brother in Idaho; anything to escape the dark drizzly wetness of their lives..

.. and then there is a sun break, and it is again the most beautiful city on earth (and yes, I’ve been to Paris)

This was a hard decision. I spent two years of my life working with my own planning firm and the Cincinnati re-vitalization CDCs on making Cincinnati a better place to live and work. The entire business plan of the company I started was based on this as it’s goal, and enabling others to do the same. I would sit on the boards and the committees where the statistics of the “brain drain” that Cincinnati was experiencing were laid out; and we all were filled with desire to make Cincinnati a “cool city” again. I lamented when other young professional friends I had left the city. I volunteered with the United Way’s Emerging Leader’s group and tried to get young urban professionals interested in volunteer opportunities with the Red Cross Disaster Services team. Leaving, I always saw, was a sort of giving up. A failure.

However, even though the city has shown progress on re-vitalization downtown and in other areas, I can’t ignore the steady decline in this city of both population and opportunities that it and many mid-west cities are experiencing. I was getting worried back in 2005 when the economic numbers out of the region weren’t doing well, with a 3.5% growth rate and sad .04% job growth rate (while by comparison the rest of the country was growing at 4.0%). On the health front, smog alerts have become the norm and Cincinnati’s air quality was only rated good 48% of the time, while Seattle (while certainly not the highest of the nation) was at 70%. Cancer mortality is also 173.1 per 100,000 households in Seattle, vs. 237.3 in Cincinnati. Cardiac deaths are 165.6 vs. 275.4, respectively.

None of this matters as much as the quality of life and opportunity that Seattle and the West Coast offers, and I am extremely excited to be working for SAFECO doing the same work that I’ve been doing with Midland and others in the past: building the best financial services architecture in the industry. I’m certain we will.

Although I do not like leaving my remaining friends in the area, I have watched for too many years as my friends and colleagues have left for bluer skies and better opportunity. I do believe Cincinnati has some life in it yet, and the mid-west in general, but not enough for me or my family to have the opportunities I want to provide for them.

The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle. And the hills the greenest green, in Seattle.