Savory: Native Kindle epub and PDF Converter

In an editorial for Forbes, Tim called for the the opening of the Kindle, else it will slowly turn obsolete. Since I love my Kindle, I am happy that my friend, Jesse Vincent, a long time open source contributor and OSCON speaker, is trying to open the Kindle. (You might remember him as the guy who discovered Amazon's USB-network easter-egg... http://ping.fm/gm5Yc

Four short links: 3 Apr 2009

Servers, artifacts, browsers, and embedded Python: Google's Data Centers -- Silicon Valley's version of a celebrity nookie video, where we get to answer the question, "are they really as good as we imagine?" Everyone's raving about each server having its own 12v battery. My eye was caught by the way the speaker attributed the efficiency to metrics: "Early on, there... http://ping.fm/KgPQE

Where 2.0 Preview: Eric Gunderson of Development Seed on the Promise of Open Data

When we think about how government uses geographic information, we tend to think about USGS maps or census data, very centralized and preplanned projects meant to produce a very specific set of products. But Development Seed believes that there are a lot more that could be done if these types of data could be mashed up easily with each other as well as with alternate sources such as social networks. Eric Gunderson, President of Development Seed, will speaking at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 Conference in June, and he recently took some time to speak to us about the potential benefits that open access to government data brings. http://ping.fm/F9iLj

Four short links: 2 Apr 2009

Predictions, PDF, source code control, and recommendation engines: Wrong Tomorrow -- track pundits predictions and see how accurate they really are. From the ever-awesome Maciej Ceglowski. PDFMiner -- Unlike other PDF-related tools, it allows to obtain the exact location of texts in a page, as well as other layout information such as font size or font name, which could be... http://ping.fm/zmimi

Google lifts its skirts

Yesterday was a remarkable day for the small, slightly obsessed band of Google data-center watchers of which I am one. Around each of the company's sprawling server farms is a high metal fence patrolled by a particularly devoted squad of rent-a-cops, who may or may not be cyborgian in nature. Ordinary humans seeking a peek at the farms have been required to stand at the fence and gaze at the serene exteriors of the buildings, perhaps admiring the way the eponymous clouds of steam rise off the cooling towers in the morning: [photo by Toshihiko Katsuda] Everything inside the buildings... http://ping.fm/M9gNH

Four short links: 1 Apr 2009

No April Fools jokes because I'm a Grinch. Instead you get architecture, research, visualization, and pain: Stacks, Readers, Staff--Building the British Library is an overview of what a momentous accomplishment the British Library was. And a reminder that no matter how gorgeous, loved, and inevitable the final product seems, there's always a pitched battle to get it made. Architect Sir... http://ping.fm/MWCfJ

Twitter U.

Realtime is going to college. The University of Phoenix, having pioneered web-based learning and built one of the largest "virtual campuses" in Second Life, is now looking to become the dominant higher-education institution on Twitter. The biggest for-profit university in the world, UoP will roll out this fall a curriculum of courses delivered almost entirely through the microblogging service, according to an article in the new issue of Rolling Stone (not yet posted online). The first set of courses will be in the school's Business and Management, Technology, and Human Services programs and will allow students to earn "certificates." But... http://ping.fm/emC5x