Amazon CloudFront looks like a great way of
doing a Content Delivery Network (CDN) on the cheap. I don’t see a way for me
to use it right away but it’s certainly a great way to make static content
quickly accessible.
You put your files on Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and use the CloudFront api to create a url to access those files. Amazon takes care of caching the content close to the user and ensuring it’s scalable.
Author: peteware
Twiddla
Twiddla is a web based whiteboard. Making a node for future investigation
From Team WhiteBoarding with Twiddla – Painless Team Collaboration for the Web
Mark up websites, graphics, and photos, or start brainstorming on a blank
canvas. Browse the web with your friends or make that conference call more
productive than ever.
Micro-ISV
I’ve started researching being a small, independent software vendor/developer. One of several inspiring stories is balsamiq.com which was referenced in this NY Times article Man Writes Software, Blogs About it, Makes $100k in 5 Months
- 25 steps for starting a micro-isv
- Some more Erik Sink.
I especially like the “25 steps”.
The Eric Sink articles are good for convincing me that it’s possible for a one
or two people to actually develop viable, commercial software. Being able to
distribute software via a website is empowering compared to try to distribute
shrink-wrap software.
Here are some books:
Paul Krugman’s Nobel Prize
I was trying to explain “The New Trade Theory” and doing a poor job of it. Fortunately, Krugman does a good job simplifying it here.
The new trade theory starts with the observation that while this explains a lot of world trade, it also misses a lot. France and Germany sell lots of stuff to each other, even though they have similar climates and resources; so do the United States and Canada. What’s that about?
The answer is that there are many goods that aren’t like wheat or bananas, but are instead like wide-bodied jet aircraft. There are only a few places in which wide-bodied jets are produced, because of the enormous economies of scale – you only want a couple of factories worldwide. Those factories have to be somewhere, and those countries that get the factories export jets, while everyone else imports them.
There’s more details in the article.
Email from Obama
It’s interesting the campaign sent out email before doing anything:
Peter —
I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.
We just made history.
And I don’t want you to forget how we did it.
You made history every single day during this campaign — every day you knocked
on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors
about why you believe it’s time for change.I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this
campaign.We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in
touch soon about what comes next.But I want to be very clear about one thing…
All of this happened because of you.
Thank you,
Barack
w00t! Obama wins!
From Obama Projected by TV Networks to Win Election – NYTimes.com
Barack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States on
Tuesday, sweeping away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as
the country chose him as its first black chief executive.
GCC Summary
Here’s a nice summary of how the CC compiler/toolchain works. Here’s some info about the next release:
Work has already begun on the 4.4 release series, and its moving toward a general release. In version 4.4, you’ll find numerous bug fixes and more general optimizer improvements. Version 3.0 of the OpenMP specification has also been integrated for codeC/code, codeC++/code, and Fortran.
The compiler will also now allow you to define an optimization level at the
function level (instead of at the file level, which was the previous
default). This functionality is provided by the codeoptimize/code attribute,
which also allows you to specify the individual options for the optimizer.Finally, processor support was added for the Picochip, which is a 16-bit
multi-core processor. What’s interesting about the Picochip is that each core
can be programmed independently, with communication provided in a mesh.
I almost know somebody almost, about to be, maybe, famous
From THE INSIDER: RENZO ROSSO – NYLON MAGAZINE
But “Aisha Attack”, really?
Financial crisis origins
Here’s some more info (see an
earlier
post) about the SEC’s 2004 decision to allow five investment banks to
increase the leverage they were able to use. Guess which five companies? The
five that went belly up and/or merged with regular banks these past few months:
From The
Reckoning – Agency’s ’04 Rule Let Banks Pile Up New Debt:
Over the following months and years, each of the firms would take advantage of
the looser rules. At Bear Stearns, the leverage ratio, a measurement of how much
the firm was borrowing compared to its total assets, rose sharply, to 33 to
1. In other words, for every dollar in equity, it had $33 of debt. The ratios at
the other firms also rose significantly. ”
Deficits under Republicans
Here’s an interesting graph that relates the national debt to the Gross Domestic Product.
From Six Years After Cheney Said “Deficits Don’t Matter,” The National Debt Hits A 50-Year High:
Bush has presided over the largest increase in the debt of any president in
history. When he took office, the national debt stood at $5.727 trillion. In
eight years, there has been an increase of over 70%.”
Pete Ware 