 Mike LoukidesRecent Posts | All O'Reilly Posts Mike blogs at: May 21 2014 The shape of software development has changed radically in the last two decades. We’ve seen many changes: the Internet, the web, virtualization, and cloud computing. All of these changes point toward a fundamental new reality: all computing has become distributed … read moreLife, death, and autonomous vehicles May 15 2014 There’s a steadily increasing drumbeat of articles and Tweets about the ethics of autonomous vehicles: if an autonomous vehicle is going to crash, should it kill the passenger in the left seat or the right seat? (I won’t say “driver’s … read moreApril 28 2014 In the wake of Heartbleed, there’s been a chorus of “you can’t trust open source! We knew it all along.” It’s amazing how short memories are. They’ve already forgotten Apple’s GOTO FAIL bug, and their sloppy rollout of patches. They’ve also … read moreApril 23 2014 In the new issue of BioCoder, Peter Sand writes about Hacking Lab Equipment. It’s well worth a read: it gives a number of hints about how standard equipment can be modified so that it can be controlled by a program. This … read moreToward an open Internet of Things April 21 2014 In a couple of posts and articles, we’ve nibbled around the notion of standards, interoperability, and the Internet of Things (or the Internet of Everything, or the Industrial Internet, or whatever you want to call it). It’s time to say … read moreApril 17 2014 A couple of years ago, I visited the World Science Festival in New York and saw Festo’s robotic bird. It was amazing. I’ve seen things that looked more or less like a bird, and that flew, but clearly weren’t flying like a bird. … read moreApril 15 2014 We’re excited about the third issue of BioCoder, O’Reilly’s newsletter about the revolution in biology and biotechnology. In the first article of our new issue, Ryan Bethencourt asks the question “What does Biotechnology Want?” Playing with Kevin Kelly’s ideas about how technological development drives … read moreApril 11 2014 In my post on biohacking and bioterrorism, I briefly mentioned the possibility of vaccines and other treatments developed outside of institutional research. That may be far-fetched, and I certainly hope we’re never in a situation where DIY treatments are the only … read moreApril 10 2014 Since Facebook’s Carlos Bueno wrote the canonical article about the full stack, there has been no shortage of posts trying to define it. For a time, Facebook allegedly only hired “full-stack developers.” That probably wasn’t quite true, even if they thought … read moreBiohacking and the problem of bioterrorism April 08 2014 You don’t get very far discussing synthetic biology and biohacking before someone asks about bioterrorism. So, let’s meet the monster head-on. I won’t downplay the possibility of a bioterror attack. It’s already happened. The Anthrax-contaminated letters that were sent to political figures … read moreThe backlash against big data, continued April 08 2014 Yawn. Yet another article trashing “big data,” this time an op-ed in the Times. This one is better than most, and ends with the truism that data isn’t a silver bullet. It certainly isn’t. I’ll spare you all the links (most of … read moreMarch 17 2014 In an interview at SXSW, Google’s Sundar Pichai said something about wearables that I’ve been waiting to hear. Wearables aren’t about Google Glass; they aren’t about smart watches; they’re much, much more, and these technologies are only scratching the surface. I’ve tweaked … read moreAcademic biology and its discontents February 06 2014 When we started BioCoder, we assumed that we were addressing the DIYbio community: interested amateur hobbyists and experimenters without much formal background in biology, who were learning and working in independent hackerspaces. A couple of conversations have made me question that … read moreBluetooth Low Energy: what do we do with you? February 04 2014 “The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads,” as Jeff Hammerbacher said. And it’s not just data analysts: it’s creeping into every aspect of technology, including hardware. One of the more exciting developments … read moreCheese, art, and synthetic biology January 29 2014 We’ve published the second issue of BioCoder! In this interview excerpt from the new edition, Christina Agapakis talks with Katherine Liu about the intersection of art and science, and the changes in how we think about biotechnology. It’s one of … read moreThe reason everyone should learn to code January 21 2014 Why do we want everyone to learn to code? It’s certainly not to produce a nation of coders. I have no delusions about everyone learning to code: it’s not going to happen, and may not even be desirable. But the … read moreIs Valve’s SteamBox a contender for the next developer workstation? January 08 2014 A scenario started playing through my head the other day. In the late 1990s, Apple looked dead. Then they released OS X, plus very cool shiny hardware. That put Apple back in the game and gave them the life they … read moreJanuary 06 2014 About a month ago, IBM published its five tech predictions for the next few years. They’re mostly the sort of unexceptional things one predicts in this sort of article — except for one: the return of local retail. This is a fascinating … read moreRobots will remain forever in the future December 18 2013 (Note: this post first appeared on Forbes; this lightly edited version is re-posted here with permission.) We’ve watched the rising interest in robotics for the past few years. It may have started with the birth of FIRST Robotics competitions, continued with the … read moreDecember 13 2013 While I’ve been skeptical of Twitter’s direction ever since they decided they no longer cared about the developer ecosystem they created, I have to admit that I was impressed by the speed at which they rolled back an unfortunate change to their … read moreDecember 09 2013 At a recent meeting, Tim O’Reilly, referring to the work of Tristan Harris and Joe Edelman, talked about “software of regret.” It’s a wonderfully poetic phrase that deserves exploring. For software developers, the software of regret has some very clear meanings. … read moreDecember 02 2013 ImpactLab has posted a nice pair of photos contrasting 2005 and 2013 in St. Peter’s Square. 2005 looks pretty much as you’d expect: lots of people in a crowd. In 2013, though, everyone is holding up a tablet, either photographing or perhaps … read moreNovember 26 2013 This time last year, Cathy O’Neil and I traded emails about the US’s annual orgy of consumerism. I promised her an article for her Mathbabe blog, which I still owe her, and we wondered how to raise consciousness about the silliness … read moreCraig Venter on moving at the speed of light November 08 2013 Last week I had the privilege of speaking with J. Craig Venter at the Hillside Club in Berkeley, as part of the Bay Area Science Festival. Dr. Venter is a pioneer in biotech, from sequencing the Human Genome to creating a synthetic … read moreOctober 25 2013 I’ve been reading about enhancements to the USB 3.0 standard that would allow a USB cable to provide up to 100 watts of power, nicely summarized in The Economist. 100 watts is more than enough to charge a laptop, and certainly … read moreOctober 25 2013 Everyone knows what feedback is. It’s when sound systems suddenly make loud, painful screeching sounds. And that answer is correct, at least partly. Control theory, the study and application of feedback, is a discipline with a long history. If you’ve … read moreThe first two weeks of BioCoder October 25 2013 We’ve been having a great time — more than 6,000 downloads, almost 13,000 visits to the landing page, and we don’t know how many people have shared it. Ryan Bethencourt observed that our readers are the largest group of DIY … read moreOctober 22 2013 When we first published Mining the Social Web, I thought it was one of the most important books I worked on that year. Now that we’re publishing a second edition (which I didn’t work on), I find that I agree with … read moreOctober 16 2013 We’re pleased to announce BioCoder, a newsletter on the rapidly expanding field of biology. We’re focusing on DIY bio and synthetic biology, but we’re open to anything that’s interesting. Why biology? Why now? Biology is currently going through a revolution as … read moreGenetically modified foods: asking the right questions September 10 2013 A while ago, I read an article in Mother Jones: GM Crops Are Killing Monarch Butterflies, After All. Given the current concerns about genetically modified foods, it was predictable — and wrong, in a way that’s important. If you read … read moreWhat is an enterprise, anyway? September 03 2013 This post was co-authored by Mike Loukides and Bill Higgins. Bill Higgins of IBM and I have been working on an article about DevOps in the enterprise. DevOps is mostly closely associated with Internet giants and web startups, but increasingly … read moreShakespeare and the myth of publishing August 21 2013 Note: this post started as a Foo Camp 2013 session. A few weeks ago, Tim O’Reilly sent around a link to Who Edited Shakespeare?, which discussed the editor for the First Folio edition of Shakespeare’s plays. It included a lot … read moreAugust 19 2013 A couple of years ago, Claudia Perlich introduced me to Foster Provost, her PhD adviser. Foster showed me the book he was writing with Tom Fawcett, and using in his teaching at NYU. Foster and Tom have a long history … read moreAugust 08 2013 There’s been a lot said and written about web performance since the Velocity conference. And steps both forward and back — is the web getting faster? Are developers using increased performance to add more useless gunk to their pages, taking … read moreJuly 31 2013 Lately there’s been a spate of articles about breakthroughs in battery technology. Better batteries are important, for any of a number of reasons: electric cars, smoothing out variations in the power grid, cell phones, and laptops that don’t need to … read moreJune 14 2013 Well over a decade ago, Bill Joy was mocked for talking about a future that included network-enabled refrigerators. That was both unfair and unproductive, and since then, I’ve been interested in a related game: take the most unlikely household product … read moreJune 05 2013 A recent blog post inquired about the incidence of Facebook-based spear phishing: the author suddenly started receiving email that appeared to be from friends (though it wasn’t posted from their usual email addresses), making the usual kinds of offers and … read moreReally Understanding Computation June 04 2013 It’s great to see that Tom Stuart’s Understanding Computation has made it out. I’ve been excited about this book ever since we signed it. Understanding Computation started from Tom’s talk Programming with Nothing, which he presented at Ruby Manor in … read moreMay 31 2013 I’d like to correct the impression, given by Derrick Harris on GigaOm, that I’m part of a backlash against “big data.” I’m not skeptical about data or the power of data, but you don’t have to look very far or … read moreMay 23 2013 If I’ve seen any theme come up repeatedly over the past year, it’s getting product cycle times down. It’s not the sexiest or most interesting theme, but it’s everywhere: if it’s not on the front burner, it’s always simmering in … read moreYet another Kickstarter: Otherlabs’ Home Milling Machine May 09 2013 If you have a good memory, you know that I’ve written about 3D printers. Technically, I grew up with the laser printer; my first computer industry job (part-time while getting an English PhD) was with Imagen, a startup that built … read moreAnother Serving of Data Skepticism May 06 2013 I was thrilled to receive an invitation to a new meetup: the NYC Data Skeptics Meetup. If you’re in the New York area, and you’re interested in seeing data used honestly, stop by! That announcement pushed me to write another … read moreApril 30 2013 In a conversation with Q Ethan McCallum (who should be credited as co-author), we wondered how to evaluate data science groups. If you’re looking at an organization’s data science group from the outside, possibly as a potential employee, what can … read moreApril 29 2013 I just read a Forbes article about Glass, talking about the split between those who are “sure that it is the future of technology, and others who think society will push back against the technology.” I don’t see this as … read moreApril 26 2013 I just invested in BioCurious’ Glowing Plants project on Kickstarter. I don’t watch Kickstarter closely, but this is about as fast as I’ve ever seen a project get funded. It went live on Wednesday; in the afternoon, I was backer … read moreApril 11 2013 A couple of months ago, I wrote that “big data” is heading toward the trough of a hype curve as a result of oversized hype and promises. That’s certainly true. I see more expressions of skepticism about the value of … read moreThe demise of Google Reader: Stability as a service March 21 2013 Om Malik’s brief post on the demise of Google Reader raises a good point: If we can’t trust Google to keep successful applications around, why should we bother trying to use their new applications, such as Google Keep? Given the … read moreMarch 20 2013 At a recent board games night hosted by Greg Brown (@practicingruby), we played a game called “Pandemic” that made me rethink the meaning of games. I won’t bother you with a detailed description; it’s enough to say that there are … read moreBig data is dead, long live big data: Thoughts heading to Strata February 25 2013 A recent VentureBeat article argues that “Big Data” is dead. It’s been killed by marketers. That’s an understandable frustration (and a little ironic to read about it in that particular venue). As I said sarcastically the other day, “Put your … read moreInvestigating the growth and influence of professional Makers February 21 2013 The growth of the Maker movement has been nothing if not amazing. We’ve had more than 100,000 people at Maker Faire in San Francisco, and more than 50,000 at the New York event, with mini-Maker Faires in many other cities. … read moreRecent Posts | All O'Reilly Posts "If you have any doubts as to how all the medical data you generate can help you down the road, this will get you thinking in a different direction." "It *is* enough to get you thinking in the right direction, and provides the start of a framework for you to "know what you don't know". It's worth the few minutes (and no cost) to download and read." |
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