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Operating system expertise moves outward as programmers job-hop

By Andy Oram
November 3, 2009

I just held a reunion with people I worked with at a real-time and data acquisition computer vendor 20 years ago, and was interested to see how many ended up in another, related line of work.

Four short links: 22 October 2009

By Nat Torkington
October 22, 2009

Eight Billion Minutes Spent on Facebook Daily -- you weren't using that cognitive surplus, were you? How We Made Github Fast -- high-level summary is that the new "fast, good, cheap--pick any two" is "fast, new, easy--pick any two". (via Simon Willison) Isaac Mao, China, 40M Blogs and Counting -- Today, there are 40 million bloggers in China and...

The Mobile Frontier - The Future of the Sustainable Network

By Sarah Sorensen
September 30, 2009

The mobile network has created unprecedented opportunity for the world. It truly is pervasive - spanning out across geographies and socio-economic boundaries to enable sustainable participation, growth and potential prosperity on a previously unimaginable scale.

Environment Variables: On Surplus, Scarcity, Fear & Greed

By Mark Sigal
August 18, 2009

I am big believer that markets gravitate between FEAR and GREED, and that industries are driven by core assumptions about the SCARCITY or SURPLUS of enabling resources. Think about the stock market in terms of the former (it's heavily outlook driven), and the evolution of computing, as afforded by the latter (i.e., the commoditization of processing, storage and bandwidth).

The US Online Job Market Improved Slightly in July

By Ben Lorica
August 5, 2009

Measured in terms of online job postings, the U.S. job market† improved slightly in July. Here are two views of the number of job postings per day: note the slight uptick in July 2009 in both graphs. The worst year-over-year decline occurred in April, the online job market subsequently shed less postings in May and June. Given that July was...

The US Online Job Market Was (still) Down Big In June 2009

By Ben Lorica
July 1, 2009

Updating my post from early June, the U.S. online job market† still hasn't shown signs of recovering from steady declines that began in September of last year. Compared to the same period last year, there were 50% less job postings in June 2009. An alternate view highlights the start of the downward trend, as well as the smaller than expected...

Four short links: 26 Mar 2009

By Nat Torkington
March 26, 2009

Books, Money, Collective Despair, and a Dashboard of Doom: Will The Real iPod For Reading Please Stand Up -- Sebastian Mary argues eloquently that we're too focused on long-term writing because of the requirements and constraints imposed upon us by a mass-market paper book, whereas text online is basically an experiment in different lengths and sizes to find new balances...

Four short links: 10 Mar 2009

By Nat Torkington
March 10, 2009

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation Sets Up Its Own BitTorrent Tracker -- the money shot is not that they're using the same code as Pirate Bay, it's "By using BitTorrent we can reach our audience with full quality media files. Experience from our early tests show that if we’re the best provider of our own content we also gain control of...

Corporations and Cloud Sourcing

By Kurt Cagle
March 9, 2009

The news out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (the BLS) was grim this weak - the unemployment rate had reached 8.1%, climbing two whole percentage points in the last quarter. This rise is even more stunning given that unemployment had reportedly been stable for the past several years at around 5%, though this may also be simply a reflection that the numbers haven't been cooked quite so vigorously.

Fighting the Status Quo

By Kurt Cagle
March 1, 2009

Seth Godin recently published a rather insightful blog post on how trade groups often work to stifle innovation in order to maintain the status quo. The comments are especially timely now, as industry after industry goes to Washington hat in hand in order to beg a few billion here or there to keep their particular company or even industry afloat.

Free

By Kurt Cagle
February 17, 2009

The paradox of contemporary life is upon us. I paid $2,000 for the laptop upon which I type these words, in addition to a hundred dollars a month paying for online access, yet the editor I'm using is a web page within a free web browser, connected to a server that is running either Linux or Open Solaris, which was downloaded for free from a distribution disk that no doubt someone paid for, albeit at a cost of pennies. Yet the time and energy to creating these operating systems were non-negligible, representing thousands of man years in total dedicated to writing this free system.

Kindle 2.0: Publishing's Killer? Publishing's Savior?

By Kurt Cagle
February 17, 2009

The new Kindle 2.0 is a cool enough-looking gadget - its hyper-svelt profile (just over a third of an inch) is thinner than most of the books it holds, at ten ounces it's also lighter, and the silvery/white casing (among others) manages to take scuffs and dirt better than its predecessor. The e-ink paper, sporting sixteen shades of gray, is also a compelling testament to what looks like the next major display technology - e-ink retains its state after it's configured, which means that you only have to refresh the page when you move beyond the buffered page content ... which in turn means that you can run the Kindle for days without recharging.

Four short links: 5 Feb 2009

By Nat Torkington
February 5, 2009

Dearest Reader, for today's compendium of brief pointers to the writings of the world's greatest minds features language not suitable for children. So please stop reading this blog post to your child. Please. Think of the children. Don't Work for Assholes (Derek Powazek) -- sound advice that we all have to learn, then relearn. Broadband Stimulus Package Explained by Yochai...

Big Mo' and The Bears

By Dale Dougherty
January 31, 2009

If you watch sports, as many will do this with the Super Bowl on Sunday, you know that games can change direction. Something happens and momentum changes quite suddenly. A team that was piling up scores suddenly becomes tentative and defensive, as was the case with the Arizona Cardinals in the NFC Championship game, even though they held on to...

The Long Emergency: An Interview with James Howard Kunstler

By Kurt Cagle
January 12, 2009

We'll, let's just start by saying we've constructed an infrastructure for daily life with no future. That's pretty disturbing, isn't it? I customarily refer to this as the greatest misallocation off resources in the history of the world. Having poured all our post-WW2 wealth in it, we've made ourselves hostage to the psychology of previous investment -- meaning we will desperately try anything to keep it all going, to sustain the unsustainable, at all costs. Thus, we'll be squandering our dwindling resources in a gigantic act of futility. That's the Big Picture end of the story.

Analysis 2009: The Financial Crisis Hits IT Hard

By Kurt Cagle
January 6, 2009

The recession that started in January 2008 looks to be four phased. The first phase, The housing collapse, actually started in August 2007. The financial meltdown hit in September 2008, and likely will continue through to March 2009 or...

Analysis 2009: Government Gets Into the Software Business

By Kurt Cagle
January 6, 2009

The incoming Obama administration has, even before taking office formally, pledged between $650 and $800 billion dollars worth of public works initiatives, a massive shift away from the laissez faire approach of the outgoing Bush administration. Of that, it...

Analysis 2009: Energy Sector Faces Volatile Year

By Kurt Cagle
January 6, 2009

Here in Victoria, my corner gas station has a liter of regular unleaded gas for CAN$0.80, about US$3.00 a gallon. Six months ago, a similar liter cost nearly $1.50, more than $6 a gallon when factoring in the dramatic...

O'Reilly Week in Review for Jan 5th, 2009

By James Turner
January 6, 2009

This week's podcast has a commentary from editor Kurt Cagle on the potential opportunities that this year could bring, a conversation with Tim O'Reilly about ways the SEC could leverage search technology, the answer to last week's quiz and a...

MadTux Closes Its Doors

By Caitlyn Martin
January 1, 2009

After eight years in business California-based MadTux, an online retailer specializing in systems preloaded with Linux, has closed.

Thinking About Wendell Berry's "In Distrust of Movements"

By Tim O'Reilly
December 28, 2008

I'm just reading a Wendell Berry essay from 2000, entitled In Distrust of Movements, reprinted on a blog with the inspired name The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles. I was going to just tweet the link, but realized that more people need to read this, and I ought to quote more extensively. (I hope that fans of Michael Pollan's books like...

Needed: A New IT Employment Model

By Kurt Cagle
December 24, 2008

It's Christmas Eve as I write this, but after having put the children to bed and turning off the tree lights, I find that my thoughts are not on Santa Claus tonight ... at least not in a very positive way.

Through A Glass (Very) Darkly: XML 2009 (Part 1 of 2)

By Kurt Cagle
December 22, 2008

A year later, the IT industry was in the worst recession that it had faced in fifteen years, a time that became known as the Tech Nuclear Winter. Senior programmers with thirty years of experience and post graduate degrees - people who sat on standards committees boards and often served to shape the industry - could be found at coffee shops "working on their next projects" while waiting for a job to open up.

Expanding The O'Reilly Forums

By Kurt Cagle
December 13, 2008

Forums have become an integral part of many communities over the years - as a webmaster on a number of different social sites, I found that the sites tended to live or die on the strength of their forums more than on any other component of the site. They provide a way for people to express their feelings, to communicate with one another, to explore deep concepts (and silly ones) and to learn, and as such they often form the vibrant backbone of communities regardless of the subject matter expressed.

A Healthcare Renaissance: Could Peak Oil Inspire America To Create A National Health Service?

By Julian Darley
December 11, 2008

The decline of petroleum seems to be one more awful problem facing the US, but could it actually be an extraordinary chance to create a fine and fair national health care system?

Why Are Newspapers Dying?

By Kurt Cagle
December 9, 2008

While newspapers are likely on their way to the recycle bin, editorial journalism isn't. We are moving to an era where journalistic integrity and personal prestige of the individual journalist is becoming more important than the prestige of the newspaper or other media that the journalist writes for. Journalism is becoming decentralized, and there are many indications that this is, just perhaps, a good thing.

Catch 22: Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Succeed

By Joshua-Michele Ross
December 8, 2008

Hat in hand the U.S. Auto Industry lined up for their slice of government aid and it appears as of this posting that they will get the money they are asking for. These titans spent years hiding behind the “free market” shibboleth when convenient (the market wants gas guzzling SUV’s) and when punished by that same market we hear that...

Regarding three economic advantages of Open Source

By Andy Oram
December 7, 2008

William Hurley recently posted an article titled Three Reasons Open Source Will Save The Economy one a new weblog of his.

When Times Get Tough, the Tough Invent

By Kurt Cagle
November 21, 2008

The best ideas are risky ... and often are not necessarily beneficial to the originator. At O'Reilly we recently had a discussion about the distinction between invention and innovation. Invention, the creation of truly novel ideas, especially the paradigm changers, is comparatively rare. It requires focused dedication, persistence, intelligence and a willingness to fight the status quo. This is because the status quo - our society overall - is resistant to the idea of change, and inventions by their very nature bring change.

Obama's Emerging Tech Doctrine

By Kurt Cagle
November 12, 2008

The weeks after a presidential election are a sobering time for incoming and outgoing presidents alike ... as well as for followers of both. It's usually the day where people "come back to the office" and start to assess just how much work needs to be done. In the case of the incoming Obama administration, this to do list is likely already huge and growing.

Top Tech Jobs for 2012

By Kurt Cagle
October 30, 2008

Trying to predict the future is always tough, but in many ways its toughest for those in college, trying to figure out where they'll find jobs when they graduate ... especially if the thrust of your interest is in technical fields. It used to be that you could look at the industry as it stood and pick the job that you wanted to graduate into, but increasingly it is likely that the job that you'll have within ten years doesn't even have a name today.

Surviving the Pink Slip

By Kurt Cagle
October 20, 2008

Everyone's been nervous for months, watching the market numbers, the stock prices, the declining sales figures. In the IT department, it's not been uncommon to see programmers with one window open on code, the second on the app the code's supposed to generate ... and the third on a steady stream of plummeting financial indexes and bad news about the economy. Then, about two in the afternoon, your project manager taps you on the shoulder - special meeting in ten minutes. When you stand up from your cubicle and look around, you notice that there are several security types idling in the hallway ... and you know, instinctively, what that meeting's going to be about.

The Next Web: "Web * e^(t/Tau)" (or "Just Say No to 2.0")

By Timothy M. O'Brien
October 16, 2008

It didn't take long for someone to say that the the financial crisis will bring about "Capitalism 2.0". In this article I talk about the overuse of the "2.0" modifier throughout media and identify three characteristics common to the everyday introduction of a new "2.0". With Money 2.0, Sport 2.0, Sex 2.0, Religion 2.0 has the "2.0" become the "e" or "cyber" prefix of the late 90s, and is it time to retire it? If so, what is the next "2.0" modifier?

Jason Fried of 37Signals on Business, Focus, and Avoiding Interruption

By Timothy M. O'Brien
October 14, 2008

Jason Fried discusses the day to day operations of 37signals and some of his ideas for minimizing distraction in the workplace. Fried talks about his view that startups should focus on profit and product before accepting venture capital. In this video, Fried's focus on the fundamentals of product design suggest an austerity and simplicity uncommon in an industry suffering from a pandemic of hype.

Frightening transparency

By Simon St. Laurent
October 10, 2008

I'm not very fond of people who claim that markets can solve all of our problems, but at the same time, I think markets can be very effective at one key economic task: setting prices. Our current financial problems derive,...

System Crash on Wall Street

By Kurt Cagle
October 6, 2008

The credit markets are seizing up, Congress-critters are trying to make the case for spending billions in a "rescue" package, the stock market gyrations are giving people whiplash, banks are popping like sulfur-filled bubbles and companies are suddenly having to make some hard decision about payroll at a time even when they have more than enough work. The end of the world as we know it seems to have come about all at once, and even as people are scrambling to protect themselves, not a few people are wondering just how everything went bad so quickly.

Short Gas Supplies Lead to Short Tempers, Long Lines and Telecommutes

By Kurt Cagle
October 1, 2008

While Hurricane Ike has long since faded into the ether, its effects on the economy continue to mount. One of the more significant (and unexpected) - Ike hit a number of oil refineries and gas distribution centers hard enough to know them offline for the last couple of weeks.

IT Workers and the Gathering Economic Storm

By Kurt Cagle
August 14, 2008

IT workers are in general perhaps better prepared for the upheavals in that emerging world than most - a world where knowledge, flexibility, indepence of action and thought, and an ability to network will prove to be the most desirable characteristics, but that nimbleness comes at the cost of not tying yourself down to the older society's expectations. Even if the economy does manage to avoid the worst of the doldrums, these are traits to encourage in the days ahead.

Is Sun Setting?

By Kurt Cagle
August 14, 2008

The global slowdown is beginning to take its toll on more exposed hardware and consulting companies. On Friday, July 10, Sun began sending out pink slips to more than 1000 employees, primarily in the marketing and sales areas as part...

Is Telework the New Face of the Agile Workforce?

By Kurt Cagle
August 14, 2008

The idea that twenty-somethings have to commute an hour plus each way to an office and work eight hours a day in a cubicle seems absurd to them. As they become the work force, expect the days of the cubicle to become numbered.

Artist Brand Building: An Idea Born from Free Debate's Middle Ground

By Mac Slocum
July 7, 2008

Two analysts with opposing views of free models both see a way for traditional content companies to adapt: help creatives build their personal brands.

Essential Points in the Free Debate

By Mac Slocum
May 28, 2008

The signal to noise ratio around free models is obscuring a number of key points. Here's a few worth discussing.

Industry Questions Raised by "Potter" Encyclopedia Suit

By Mac Slocum
April 14, 2008

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling testified earlier this week against a publisher that wants to release the unofficial Harry Potter Lexicon, a print adaptation of Steven Vander Ark's popular Potter encyclopedia site. From the New York Times: ... Ms. Rowling...