Shapeoko

Desktop Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine:

http://www.shapeoko.com/

Big Data Glossary

1. Apache Hadoop (http://hadoop.apache.org ) - an open source distributed computing platform which includes the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) and an implementation of MapReduce.
2. Apache HBase (http://hbase.apache.org ) - open source distributed storage for big data (e.g. over a billion rows and a million columns) on clusters of commodity hardware.
3. Apache Hive (http://hive.apache.org) - a data warehouse solution that provides ETL and access to files and query execution.
4. Cassandra (http://cassandra.apache.org) - a distributed database developed at Facebook (www.facebook.com) owned by DataSax (www.stax.com), now integrated with Hadoop to provide an analytic platform for big data.
5. Cloudera (www.cloudera.com) - a participant in Hadoop with a commercial distribution bundle that includes the source code and other features in one package.
6. Greenplum (www.greenplum.com) - a division of EMC (www.emc.com) that provides an analytic platform, a data computing appliance, a database and other products for big data analysis.
7. Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS, http://hadoop.apache.org/hdfs) - the file system used by Hadoop for distributed data storage.
8. Hortonworks (www.hortonworks.com) - a commercial open source platform based on Hadoop for storing, processing, and analyzing big data.
9. MapReduce (www.mapreduce.org) - technology developed by Google (www.google.com) and used by Hadoop for its parallel processing. It is the core technology behind the big data engines. In the "map" step, input data is distributed to multiple nodes for computation, and in the "reduce" step, the results are collected to produce the answer to the initial question.
10. MongoDB (www.mongodb.org) - a high-performance, open source, NoSQL database written in C++.
11. NoSQL (www.nosql.org) - a group of non-relational, distributed, open source, scalable databases designed for Web-scale use. Over 100 such products are listed on www.nonsql-database.org, including Apache HBase, Cassandra, Amazon SimpleDB, MongoDB.

Agile and CMMI

A very good Software Engineering Institute paper on Agile and CMMI by David Anderson. It's a lengthy read but goes in to good depth and addresses a number of common perception issues in detail @ http://www.sei.cmu.edu/reports/08tn003.pdf

Identity Theft on Facebook

From EE Time:

"Raise your hand only if someone lifted private information on your own Facebook page, pretended to be you, befriended your friends, family members and business contacts and pried information out of them as if the “real” you were asking the questions."

Exploring Cloud Architecture

From the MSDN Magazine:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/hh852589.aspx

Internet & Cloud for Astronomy

I really liked this paper since it uses software engineering and a species of (Internet/Cloud)-based services to render its results.

Look at page 3:

"We created a workflow, i.e. an automatic data retrieval and analysis system to search for cE galaxies in large data collections provided by the Virtual Observatory (VO, (12)). It comprised the following steps. (i) Identify nearby galaxy clusters at redshifts z < 0.055 using the Vizier Service (13) at the Centre de Donn´ees Astronomiques de Strasbourg. Without this condition our potential candidate cE galaxies would have been too faint for spectroscopic follow-up. (ii)

Once the sources were identified, gather more precise measurements using other VO services including the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED, (14)). (iii) Use the IVOA Simple Image access Protocol to find and fetch the HST images of selected galaxy clusters from the Hubble Legacy Archive (HLA, (15)). (iv) For each image, run the SExtractor source identification software (16) to obtain half-light radii, total luminosities and approximate light profiles for all galaxies in each frame. (v) Apply color corrections to homogenize the results for all photometric bands and use the surface brightness – half-light radius criteria to find cE candidates. (vi) Finally, query NED, Vizier and a database of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (17) to find additional information for candidate objects, such as published redshifts and integrated photometry."

A Population of Compact Elliptical Galaxies Detected with the Virtual Observatory

Time-lapse Video of the Night Sky

http://vimeo.com/dakotalapse/temporaldistortion

Keyboard Pants

http://www.gizmag.com/keyboard-pants/21469/?utm_source=Gizmag+Subscribers&utm_campaign=9653baeb36-UA-2235360-4&utm_medium=email

The Beauty of Things

The beauty of things -
Is in the beholder's brain - the human mind's translation
of their transhuman
Intrinsic value.
...as mathematics, a human invention
That parallels but never touches reality, gives the astronomer
Metaphors through which he may comprehend
The powers and the flow of things: so the human sense
Of beauty is our metaphor of their excellence, their divine
nature: - like dust in a whirlwind, making
The wild wind visible.

-Robinson Jeffers

http://www.youtube.com/v/xHkq1edcbk4?version=3

Underwater Statues

Dutch Bridge Creativity

This sunken bridge located in the Netherlands is giving visitors a unique way to access a beautiful 17th Century Dutch fort. Designed by RO & AD Architects, the Moses Bridge literally parts the waters that surround the fort, allowing pedestrians to pass through.

Growth & Innovation

http://www.brookings.edu/events/2012/0113_growth_innovation.aspx

On IT Careers in 2012

On IT Careers in 2012

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/010412-ceo-follow-254518.html

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/122311-outlook-staffing-quit-254362.html

An Entity Framework Book

http://visualstudiomagazine.com/efbook

.NET Developer Salary Survey

From the January 2012 issue of the Visual Studio Magazine:

http://visualstudiomagazine.com/articles/2012/01/01/developer-salary-survey.aspx

File-Share Religion

A "church" whose central tenet is the right to file-share has been formally
recognised by the Swedish government:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16424659

Prospects for Global Restraints on Cyberattack

http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011_12/Prospects_for_Global_Restraints_on_Cyberattack

Water-Scrum-fall is the reality of agile

From the Software Development Times (www.sdtimes.com):

http://sdtimes.com/content/article.aspx?ArticleID=36195&print=true

3 observations:

1. Water defines the upfront work
2. Scrum comes in the middle of the process
3. Fall: Limits to release frequency

Agile Slaves

http://sdtimes.com/blog/post/2011/11/11/Agile-slaves.aspx

Books on Lean Software Development

From Software Development Times (http://sdtimes.com/):

"Implementing Lean Software Development: From Concept to Cash"By Mary Poppendieck and Tom PoppendieckThis book taught me a different way of thinking, and helped me understand where the agile approach to software development comes from. I had read a lot of agile stuff on the Web, but the ideas presented there were not well defended. The authors of this book show you the research behind their approach to software development.— Bill Wagner

"Leading Lean Software Development: Results Are Not the Point "By Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck"Leading Lean Software Development" addresses one of the key issues that software development teams following the Scrum methodology tend to struggle with: how to focus on the larger organization, not just the team itself.— Ellen Gottesdiener