Testing is still underway to identify the specific virus in question, but they believe it to be the Norovirus, a common cause of the "stomach flu", which can cause temporary flu-like symptoms for up to 48 hours.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) was notified on Wednesday May 7, 2008, of several persons that became ill after attending or working at conferences at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from April 30, 2008 through May 8, 2008. The SFDPH is working with the organizers of the meeting facilities to make cleaning recommendations and to confirm the cause of the illnesses. The ill attendees/workers are suspected to have a viral illness called Norovirus. Noroviruses are a common cause of the "stomach flu," or gastroenteritis (GAS-tro-en-ter-I-tis).

What are the symptoms of illness caused by Noroviruses?
The symptoms of norovirus illness include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and some stomach cramping. Sometimes people also have a low-grade fever, chills, headache, muscle aches, and a general sense of tiredness. The illness often begins suddenly and the infected person may feel very sick. The illness is usually brief, with symptoms lasting only about 1 or 2 days.

Are Noroviruses contagious?
Noroviruses are very contagious and can spread easily from person to person. Noroviruses are found in the stool or vomit of infected people. People can become infected with the virus in several ways, including:

• Eating food or drinking liquids that are contaminated with Norovirus;
• Touching surfaces or objects contaminated with Norovirus, and then placing their hand in their mouth;
• Having direct contact with another person who is infected and showing symptoms (for example, when caring for someone with illness, or sharing foods or eating utensils with someone who is ill).
• Persons suspected of being ill with Norovirus should abstain from attending or working at any Moscone Center conferences until 48 hours after symptoms have resolved.

How can Norovirus infections be prevented?

• Frequently wash your hands, especially after using the toilet and before eating or preparing food.


• Carefully wash fruits and vegetables, and steam oysters before eating them.


• Thoroughly clean and disinfect contaminated surfaces immediately after an episode of illness by using a bleach-based household cleaner.


• Immediately remove and wash clothing or linens that may be contaminated with virus after an episode of illness (use hot water and soap).


• Flush or discard any vomit and/or stool in the toilet and make sure that the surrounding area is kept clean.


• Persons who are infected with Norovirus should not prepare food while they have symptoms and for 3 days after they recover from their illness.

Information on more Frequently Asked Questions on Norovirus can be viewed on the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) website at http://www.sfcdcp.org/norovirus.cfm

Young used his time on stage during the keynote to show off a 10-disc Blu-Ray project that included almost every song he'd ever recorded, in chronological order. Sun's role? In providing Sony the Java code that allows for interactive features on Blu-ray. Young said that while he'd been working on the project for 15 years, only now was the digital audio quality up to standard. Each track had visual accompaniment from the relevant era. When a recording from the compact disc era appeared, he joked "We took a giant dump at this point." He also mentioned that he was working to create a car that didn't require stops for refueling, which also has some tangential relationship to Java, showing off an American mid-century model he's entering in the automotive X-Prize challenge.

Interestingly enough, us bloggers with our hair-trigger deadlines were given first crack at asking questions of Young (and indulging in the complimentary fruit plate), while the print reporters with their leisurely deadlines had to wait outside. As we waited for Young and his entourage to arrive, O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly showed off his Livescribe pen for recording audio in time with written notes to News.com editor-in-chief Dan Farber, who remarked sagely about the need for special Livescribe paper, "So they're selling the razors and the blades." But the two quickly went into fanboy mode when Young arrived, peppering the man with questions before anyone else could get a word in edgewise.

The car project, part of a documentary Young's working on with filmmaker Larry Johnson, a longtime collaborator, seems to be a bit of a lark. He wants to create a superefficient car that doesn't need to stop for gas or electricity, and he wants it to be heavy. While I might have gotten a C+ in college physics, it's enough to know that you can't run a Lincoln Continental on unicorns and rainbows. "It's very kooky. When you try to do something like this, people say you're nuts." Wonder why?

I mostly went on behalf of my father, who's pretty much a superfan (to the point where, besides the mutton-chop sideburns and dark glasses, he and Young seem to have identical fashion sense). My question had to do with the fact that my father had already bought Young's work on vinyl, then again on CD, and will now probably buy it all over again on Blu-ray in the fall. "I think it's the same as Microsoft selling the same applications every year with new bells and whistles." He then made this vinyl collector very happy by lambasting the quality of digital audio, and saying that he still records and edits everything in analog.

Young was at his best when he pierced through the Sun marketing hype of the morning. When O'Reilly asked how the musician felt about the "free" aspects of Sun's open-source efforts with Java, Young veered well of the "Keep on rockin' in a free world" tagline I assume Sun paid dearly for: "The free aspect... I think that's a word, that's a marketing thing." Touché.

The company then trotted out the likes of Ian freed, Amazon.com's VP on the Kindle project, and Rikko Sakaguchi, SVP at Sony Ericsson, to explain how their devices were using Java. A Sun software engineer and designer showed off Java-powered apps, such as the ConnectedLife widget which travels from Facebook to desktop client to mobile device. (He did not mention that Facebook has dropped support for Java.) Green announced that the latest build of the Java software was available today, and that the developers suite, OpenJDK, now supports popular Linux distributions Ubuntu and Red Hat, with a Fedora release within a month.

A software-emulated mobile device was shown running Google's Android — presumably the two companies have made nice. But beyond the OpenJDK announcement, nary a word was spoken about the enterprise market and if any role for Java in datacenter applications was mentioned, I missed it. I was listening for Green or CEO Jonathan Schwartz to say something, anything, about the company's quarterly earnings and new revenue streams. Instead, he talked about how the latest Java releases will be free and open-source.

I guess the company will make their coin providing support to the device manufacturers who use the JavaME mobile platform or the JavaFX suite of multimedia tools — competing with other application development environments such as Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. Problem is, Sun's tools for content developers require a level of Java expertise well above that required by Adobe's easy-to-use Flash tools, and both Flash and Silverlight are also being licensed for free to device manufacturers. But hey, did we mention Neil Young?

JavaOne newcomer: Man, these people are just grabbing everything

Oldtimer: They never had to learn to manage their own memory. What did you expect?

And an IM exchange:

There: are you at javaone too?

Not there: no i'm having an unconference at my desk now fuck off

Paul Boutin puts it best: "Quick, someone throw a MacBook through the screen!"

Splunk booth hunk Vito. That's his name. No joke needed here.

An assistant holds Scott McNealy's official "Not the CEO!" buck-passing sign.

After the jump, much ado about coiffing.

"Look, all I know is that I came to this studio stoned, and I'm seeing all these M&M's that I cannot eat!"

"Oh yeah? Well — well — Jon Schwartz's ponytail is TEN times cooler than yours!"

Splunk's Christina Noren is about to sic Vito on this man's hair.

"Mumble mumble mumble Google chefs mumble mumble getting all the girls mumble spotlight-grabbing food hacks mumble..."

It takes more than a roomful of beanbag chairs to impress the ConFonz. Valleywag's favorite conference correspondent comes away from Sun's JavaOne conference with an upset stomach, a full bladder, and a case of the shakes.

Have you ever wondered how to put 5000 programmers, analysts, journalists, and Sun employees to sleep? Well, just ask Mr. Gage, Sun's chief researcher, and he'll explain that the best way to do this is to open your conference with an 8:30 AM keynote that starts out with a lengthy explanation of the myriad misprints, mix-ups, and overbookings. Gage spent 20 minutes speaking in a monotone about why conference attendees shouldn't be shy, why they have to register ahead of time for every session they want to attend, and why the documentaiton handed out at the beginning of the show was mostly incorrect.

The ConFonz is no stranger to boredom. After decades of attending conferences filled with dull developers, plodding programmers, and fizzling flaks, the ConFonz has gained the ability to sleep with his eyes open and in the seated position. But Tuesday morning's keynote pushed even the ConFonz's minimal patience to its utmost limits. After Gage came Schwartz, who's unscripted discussions of the future gave the press lots to write about, but little to actually say. Rather than tell developers that Sun would now be giving away Niagra servers for free, Schwartz decided to wave one of the things around over his head beneath a banner that read "Free Kits," then to replace the thing under a desk and move on without mentioning it again. Sun didn't even issue a press release on this.

And then, Jackson and Green took over the show, boring the audience to absolute tears. Between Jackson's lame Monty Python jokes (Jesus, dude, there are so many other Python things to quote than the Holy Grail) and Green's "I'm new here, don't ask me to be interesting" approach the entire attending public was ready to slit its own throats just to stop the cavalcade of bad public speaking.

As if all this weren't enough, the rest of the conference was in complete dissaray. Sessions were crowded, lines for food, speeches, and shwag were exceptionally long, and the actual attenance numbers look very low from down here in the reeds. With Sun spiralling downwards, out of control, and the entire organization in complete chaos, this year's JavaOne isn't even about Java. It's about AJAX.

Time was, years ago, that Sun took care of its developers in a manner similar to Microsoft. The incandescant company used to hold all night parties and coding sessions, fueled by free coffee, soda, and schwag. Now, the company makes its developers jump through hoops, chase from booth to booth, and generally dance like monkeys for all those goodies.

Sure, they fed the press, offered free coffee in the media room, and the show floor had some remarkably good schwag, but in general, this year's JavaOne is the most underwhelming developers conference in recent memory. Sorry, Sun, you had a good run, but these days yer just not any fun!

Photo by Pat McGovern [Paul Boutin on Flickr]