O'Reilly News

Washington Newseum stresses individual heroism, downplays economics and social context

2009-11-28T01:00:31Z

The Newseum is worth the entrance fee. But it gives short shrift to journalism's economics, influence on society, and technology.

Four short links: 27 November 2009 - 3D Models from Webcams, a Javascript Scheme, EMACS in Your Browser, and CS History

2009-11-27T11:00:00Z

ProFORMA -- software which builds a 3D model as you rotate an object in front of your webcam. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

Vale JCP? - Scala and Java:

2009-11-26T04:45:56Z

I am really impressed by Scala, though I have not used it on any real projects yet. Apart from reflection, it seems to be much stronger than Java in all the kinds of features that are good for XML document processing: co-routines, pattern matching and so on. The built-in XML tree that documents can be parsed in to does not contain back pointers, so up-going axes require extra coding; Scala is obviously more congenial for OmniMark or XSLT programmers than Java.

I Am Thankful for the Network

2009-11-25T21:07:26Z

I find myself feeling optimistic. Why? Because I know we have the capacity and tools to make more and more of these positive changes. We have the network. And the network can help everyone and everything it connects maximize their potential.

Onstage, Terrified - Confessions of a Public Speaker in the Wall Street Journal

2009-11-25T19:09:09Z

Onstage, Terrified – "It is always reassuring to read about the performance anxiety of the successful--whether it's a star pitcher feeling jittery before starting a World Series game or a concert violinist who admits to going into a meditative trance before walking out onstage," writes Philip Delves Broughton of the Wall Street Journal in his entertaining review of Scott Berkun's Confessions of a Public Speaker.

What's Hot in O'Reilly Answers - Configuring Drupal Themes, Android on Verizon, Home Backup Systems, Google Wave, and much more!

2009-11-25T19:08:57Z

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Calculating Carbon Footprint

2009-11-25T13:34:00Z

I tried a few sites for calculating carbon footprint. It seems my carbon footprint is probably between 3 and 6 tonnes, and this is maybe 1/3 of Australian average and maybe 1/4 of the US average. I suppose because I walk to work and the local shops. Actually, I don't think I have any close friends who even have cars, now that I think about it. But what is noticeable is that my typical one international flight per year contributes such a lot of carbon: maybe 2 tonnes.

Four short links: 25 November 2009 - Sexy HTTP Parser, 9/11 Pager Leaks, Open Source Science, GLAM and Newspapers

2009-11-25T11:00:00Z

Copyright, Findability, and Other Ideas from NDF (Julie Starr) -- A newspaper industry guru attended the National Digital Forum where Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums talk about their digital issues, where she discovered that newspapers and GLAMs have a lot in common. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

Steve Jobs is the closest thing to Walt Disney since Walt Disney

2009-11-24T21:10:52Z

I have written in the past about the the vision that drove Steve Jobs in pursuing his ambition for Apple. A cursory glance at the significant milestones in the careers of Walt Disney and Steve Jobs suggests an otherworldly ability to invent, re-invent and extend 'unfair advantages' across seemingly orthogonal domains. Steve Jobs is the closest thing to Walt Disney since Walt Disney, now forever bound by Pixar.

Velocity 2010: Fast By Default

2009-11-24T17:05:00Z

We're entering our third year of Velocity, the Web Performance & Operations Conference. Velocity 2010 will be June 22-24, 2010 in Santa Clara, CA. It's going to be another incredible year. Steve Souders & I have set a new theme this year, "Fast by Default". We want the broader Velocity community & to adopt it as a shared mission & mantra. The reason for this is simple.

Upcoming Webcast: Confessions of a Public Speaker - Live Event December 2nd

2009-11-24T16:07:06Z

For leaders, managers and anyone who speaks and expects someone to listen, Scott Berkun shares an insider's perspective on how to effectively present ideas to anyone. Loosely based on his third book, Confessions of a Public Speaker, this fun, interactive webcast brings you lively lessons and insightful confessions, giving you new insights into the art of persuasion--as well as teaching and learning--directly from a master of the trade. Bring your toughest questions and situations for Scott to answer or solve. Attendance is limited, so register now!

More Upcoming Webcasts and Online Conferences:

Check out our Webcast page for on-demand videos of past webcasts and more upcoming live events!

Featured Web 2.0 Video: The Serendipity Engine - Chris Brogan at Web 2.0 Expo

2009-11-24T16:01:05Z

O'Reilly Media

Four short links: 24 November 2009 - Pwned by English, Scammy Christmas, TechCrunch Design, Facebook Numbers

2009-11-24T11:00:00Z

English Shellcode (PDF) -- paper presented at ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, showing how to encode arbitrary x86 shell code (the payload in a malware or other attack that elevates privileges and pwns your machine) as something that looks, at first glance, to be English text. Impressive piece of work. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

How far can documentation go?

2009-11-24T06:41:05Z

SAMBA's Jeremy Allison has a great post Why writing a Windows compatible file server is (still) hard. What leaps out to me? First, that the method of requiring complete documentation outside a formalized QA process doesn't work real well. The second thing is that even if there is documentation, some incompatibilities come down to capability mismatches.

Schematron at the Associated Press

2009-11-24T05:33:06Z

Stuart Myles has a quick slide presentation Schematron and Other Useful Tools at the IPTC Autumn Meeting about how the Associated Press reduced manual checking & QA of incoming iAtom feeds using open source tools.