Distributing biodiversity data globally
My current project at work will take me far into next year, and that’s good because I’m facing an unprecedented amount of data, that will only continue to grow. Because of this I’m finally getting to put my money where my mouth is. For years I’ve talked about my ideas and theories about how I could network disparate systems together and have them leverage each other to keep everything in sync. So, while working with Open Source to push boundaries I seem to find more ways to do more complex things. One basic idea that I’m working on now is that data sets are huge, and are only going to get huger (and hugerer) as time goes on, how to handle this has been solved a few different ways. Usually it’s someone like the Internet Archive who have 1000s of computers networked together to share the data (they are using some parts of hadoop for the distributed file system, and then nutch for search indexing) – but it’s still working from one central point of failure. I started doing research to find out how this has been solved before, and if my idea of building a BitTorrent network was sound – and I found some great information to build on. As I’m setting up my demo BitTorrent tracker in Debian, this info keeps me thinking of the best ways to implement my ideas. Much of my progress is due to the very helpful advice of Paul at Geograph Torrent Archive, a project that has somewhat similar goals. (more…)
Record Store Day – April 19, 2008
“On Saturday, April 19, 2008, hundreds of independently owned music stores across the country will celebrate Record Store Day. On this day, all of these stores will simultaneously link and act as one with the purpose of celebrating the culture and unique place that they occupy both in their local communities and nationally.” There you go, April 19th I expect all of you to visit an independent music store in your area and buy some music; records, cds, 45s, posters, tshirts – hell, consider getting a new turntable, the kind with the USB plugs so you can rip that new vinyl! I’ll be swinging by my neighborhood store, Euclid Records for sure on that day (and likely before…) – the thought of not having that as an option terrifies me.
Hi, I'm fak3r and I've been online for over 15 years, blogging for 10. I work with open source software, various hardware and whatever else that I can hack on. I enjoy learning by doing, painting infrequently and listening to more music than the law allows. Feel free to follow me and comment on my thoughts and ideas; we're all in it together kid.
Commentary: AB sold to InBev
Where there's Life...there's Bud!
NOTE: As a St. Louis native, I was asked to comment on the sale of local St. Louis brewer Anheuser-Busch to European beverage conglomerate InBev. The following are my comments from the thread.
A couple of things here, AB has been a big STL employer for years sure, but just because they’re big doesn’t mean they’re good. Look at other big employers here; Boeing, AG Edwards and now AB – while they’re headquartered here, they’re not much more than bragging rights for St Louisans – just because they’re based here, they’re far from ‘local’. They’re all multi-national corporations which means the money is a) not staying here and b) is fluid, ready to be munched up by the next corporation up the chain, which leaves the employees as a line item – so much for loyalty. So why should a local market worry about a corporation that doesn’t care about them? (more…)
Jul 19, 2008 | Categories: commentary, commerce, rant | Tags: American, backlash, boeing, boycott, bragging rights, community, corporation, global market, homogenization, local, local market, loyalty, national corporations, St. Louis, stock, wal mart | Comments