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nosql:

It’s been only a couple of hours since the news about Amazon DynamoDB got out and since then I went through as much documentation as I could. Here are my notes so far. If you found interesting bits please leave a comment and I’ll add them to the list (with attribution):

• it is not the first…

idonethis:

The wonder of Silicon Valley has been its rich history of producing incredibly capital efficient companies operating at massive scale. No doubt part of that achievement lies in the capital efficiency of software engineering itself where technology gives incredible leverage to create and disrupt…

“Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.” - Immanuel Kant

Ours is an imperfect society. The nature of our reality, our desires and our need to possess, while maintaining a façade of moral righteousness, puts us at odds with the reality that exists within the systems we have created.

In recent days, the character of our era of consumerism has been put in question. We want what is new, shiny, fashionable. We want it now. With this desire we turn our heads from the consequences it takes to produce our toys, our symbols of status. When The New York Times reports that our gadgets are made in Chinese factories where working conditions can be horrendous, we express outrage and tweet the article from our iPads. The culture we have created comes with the cost of doing business.

(Source: tumblr.com)

Awesome lightning talk video on language insanity

parislemon:

An automatic download for me. I was addicted to the original for the Dreamcast back in they day. Yes, at one point I owned a Dreamcast.

At $11.99 it may seem a bit pricey (and that’s actually after a 20% release week discount), but it’s a Universal app that works on both the iPhone and iPad.

I’m downloading it right now, so I haven’t played it yet. But the reviewers so far seem to love the graphics and controls, but miss multiplayer functionality.

underpaidgenius:

What is written as a recommendation by the NY Times Editorial Board to the leaders of the European Union is actually better considered as a prediction.

Greece is careening toward a disorderly default because the northern European economies won’t accept the idea of forgiving the ‘southerner’s debts’ — even though in reality the debts were caused by the real estate/bank crash of 2008. But the facts shouldn’t get in the way of a morality play, which is what the current austerity regimes are: they are actively damaging the economies they are supposed to be benefiting. And the people won’t stand for it.

via NY Times

Without a new infusion of financial assistance, Greece could default on a $19 billion bond payment as soon as March 20. But Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and Nicolas Sarkozy, the president of France, have warned that Greece will receive additional funds only after it complies with the terms of its agreement. This includes convincing Greece’s private creditors to accept a 50 percent writedown on some $260 billion of debt, and proceeding with draconian budget cuts that have already forced the government to raise tax rates, cut jobs and pensions and slash spending in the middle of a recession.

But debt relief talks have stalled, with hedge funds and other investors that bought the debt from French and German banks holding out for better terms. And Greece can hardly take more austerity. Its economy contracted by 5.5 percent last year, after shrinking more than 3 percent year-over-year in 2009 and 2010.

The economic implosion is preventing the country from meeting its fiscal commitments by reducing tax revenue and increasing expenditures on automatic programs like unemployment insurance. Despite spending cuts, Greece is likely to have a 9.6 percent budget deficit in 2011, half a percentage point above target.

More importantly, austerity is rending Greek society. Unemployment has mushroomed to 18 percent, with enormous social costs like rising homelessness and crime. Imposing further cuts is becoming politically untenable.

It is time to shift course. Although Greece is a small economy, Europe is in no shape to withstand the financial fallout of a disorderly Greek default, or its abandoning the euro. Greece is likely to need even more money than it has been promised so far. Economists think the 50 percent writedown may not be enough to return Greek debt to manageable levels. What’s more, Greece and its weak neighbors need Europe’s stronger economies, like Germany, to start spending more to help boost their exports.

Germany should realize by now that without growth its beleaguered neighbors will never be able to pay back their debts. Europe’s problems have spiraled so far out of control that no one knows what policy mix will work. What is certain is that a single-minded obsession with austerity will only deepen the crisis.

falicon:

Today I’m making the first public mention of a new little service I’ve built called whoclicked.it. A simple service designed to tell you who actually clicks on the links you share around the web.

It’s an idea that’s been on my mind for a couple of years now, but was primarily driven by two…