Progressology

im-out-here

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:40:27 -0600

Need a Job? New Study Says Learn Linux.

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:36:59 -0600

Need a Job? New Study Says Learn Linux.:

No one disputes that that tech jobs are fueling the economy in the U.S. and around the world. The U.S. President said in his recent State of the Union address that there are twice as many openings in the science and technology sector as there are people to fill them. But where exactly are these jobs? And, who exactly is landing them?

Today, we have new data that helps us understand where are the tech jobs and that tells us we need more trained people in the most profitable and rewarding areas of tech.

The first-ever Linux Jobs Report released today surfaces two of the most lucrative areas in the tech jobs market - Linux development and Linux systems administration. Eighty-one percent of recruiters surveyed for the report say hiring Linux talent is a priority in the year ahead. And, 63% percent will hire Linux talent over candidates with other skill areas.

A NYU Professor recently said “code is the literacy of the future” (CNN: Computer Geeks King in Job Hunt). We agree. And, we believe that Linux is an important currency in that future. It powers the Internet. It runs Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter and millions of other Internet technology companies. It runs the world’s supercomputers, data centers, smartphones, financial institutions and stock exchanges, and the list goes on. It’s no surprise that with its widespread ubiquity that today there is also growing demand for talent to support it. In fact, when the Linux Jobs Report survey respondents were asked why hiring Linux talent was a priority in the year ahead, most reported their companies are growing, increasing their use of Linux and requiring in-house expertise to support the OS.

But the Linux Jobs Report also finds a wrinkle in an otherwise positive story: Linux and open source developers can be hard to find. Eight-five percent of those surveyed say that finding Linux talent is really difficult.

via unexpectedtech

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature’s genius in architecture via...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:05:57 -0600

Michael Pawlyn: Using nature’s genius in architecture

via unexpectedtech

Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:58:59 -0600

Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software Movement

Johan Soderberg

Synopsis:

The Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement demonstrates how labour can self-organise production, and, as is shown by the free operating system GNU/Linux, even compete with some of the worlds largest firms. The book examines the hopes of such thinkers as Friedrich Schiller, Karl Marx, Herbert Marcuse and Antonio Negri, in the light of the recent achievements of the hacker movement. This book is the first to examine a different kind of political activism that consists in the development of technology from below.

Open Source Tackles Healthcare In Places Microsoft Can’t

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:58:11 -0600

Open Source Tackles Healthcare In Places Microsoft Can’t :

At one hospital in Kano, Nigeria, 50 babies are born each day. And it’s not exactly prepared to handle them all. “We’re talking about one midwife taking three deliveries at a time,” says Evelyn Castle.

Nonetheless, Castle aims to create digital records of those births and the hundreds of others happening across northern Nigeria each day — even as she and another American expatriate, Adam Thompson, are working to digitize the health records of adults across the region, including polio cases and expectant mothers who’ve tested HIV positive. It’s an enormous task, but the size is only part of the problem. Castle and Thompson are introducing western technology to facilities that aren’t familiar with it — and may not have the resources to handle what they are familiar with.

Rice University And OpenStax Announce First Open-Source Textbooks

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:57:52 -0600

Rice University And OpenStax Announce First Open-Source Textbooks:

Rice University, which has been pushing alternative distribution mechanisms for scholarly publications for years, has announced a new initiative, by which they hope to publish free, high-quality textbooks in core subjects like physics and biology via a non-profit publisher called OpenStax College. It’s the polar opposite of Apple’s iBooks textbooks, which, while they too help drag this dusty industry into the present, amount more to a new sales vector for the publishers than competition.

via unexpectedtech

The Architecture of Open Source Applications

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:57:00 -0600

The Architecture of Open Source Applications

A full Ubuntu desktop, on your docked Android phone via Ubuntu...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:36:37 -0600

A full Ubuntu desktop, on your docked Android phone

via Ubuntu for Android | Ubuntu, shared-vrypan

Documentary on the Ranger known as Pat Tillman. Man who gave up...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:35:44 -0600

Documentary on the Ranger known as Pat Tillman. Man who gave up his multimillion dollar football career to serve his country when it was in need. To only have his death covered up and only through the hard work of his Mother did the truth come out.

via airbornebear

BBC News - App helps blind to send text messages “[There is] a...

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:35:27 -0600

BBC News - App helps blind to send text messages

“[There is] a growing anxiety shared among the blind community that the widespread adoption of touchscreens for many machines and devices is making them ‘truly blind’… from copying machines to machines at the gym - is all coming with touch screens.”

“Blind people say I ‘see’ things with my fingers, but on touchscreens they are truly blind.”

via courtenaybird

Photo

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 19:23:50 -0600

NY TIMES: "People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time."

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:40:25 -0600

NY TIMES: "People who constantly reach into a pocket to check a smartphone for bits of information will soon have another option: a pair of Google-made glasses that will be able to stream information to the wearer’s eyeballs in real time.":

via inothernews

Co-op Capitalism?

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 00:12:57 -0600

Co-op Capitalism?:

From Plunkett Foundation:

Noreena Hertz, who for more than two decades has made accurate predictions about economic trends, has named ‘Co-op Capitalism’ as the next economic era. In a paper published by Co-operatives UK today, Prof Hertz states that ‘the model of capitalism that was dominant for the past 30 years has clearly failed. It’s time to embrace a new model of capitalism, Co-op Capitalism, for reasons of social justice but also enlightened self interest. Co-op Capitalism offers a new way forward that reconnects the economy with society and puts collaboration, community and the collective first.”

The paper highlights how other countries are growing because of a more collaborative relationship between the state, market, individual and society and highlights how businesses that embrace the co-operative ethic are weathering the economic downturn better than traditional ones.

via cameronneil

Since submarines began roaming the depths in World War I,...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 12:17:27 -0600

Since submarines began roaming the depths in World War I, sailors and oceanographers, who use sonar technology to map seafloor topography and identify ocean life, have regularly run into “acoustic ghosts”—inexplicable bodies of movable mass that sometimes rivaled the size of a city. Every time a theory emerged to explain the phenomenon, however, it was quickly shot down.

In 2003 scientists aboard a research vessel just south of Long Island, New York, discovered that the UFOs were composed of hundreds of millions of fish—massive gatherings on a scale never before documented. Using low-frequency sonar technology that penetrated hundreds of miles, they identified a school roughly the size of Manhattan.

Keep reading …

New York City public schools have a citywide ban on cell...

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:41:41 -0600

New York City public schools have a citywide ban on cell phones, and I’d heard there were bodegas that offer daily “storage” to students for a small fee. It’s a good deal for bodegas—assuming they don’t get targeted and robbed—as cell phones don’t take up much space, and the twice-daily student traffic probably provides a modest boost in sales.

A company called Pure Loyalty Electronic Device Storage has expanded on this business model, deploying brightly-painted trucks to schools with metal detectors (where it’s impossible to smuggle a phone in) to serve as mobile storage units. At the Bronx’s DeWitt Clinton high school alone, the truck serves an estimated 500 to 550 students per day. At a buck per phone and with 180 school days a year, that one truck alone grosses roughly $90,000 to $99,000 annually.

8226 via More Unpredictable Side Effects of Technology: Cell Phone Storage Trucks for Students - Core77

"Without the election of George W. Bush, I don’t think we would have danced quite so hard to Bin..."

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:34:47 -0600

“Without the election of George W. Bush, I don’t think we would have danced quite so hard to Bin Laden’s tune, leading the country into two wars (one of which was entirely gratuitous). Nor would we have had the runaway deficit spending (including the cost of those two wars) that bankrupted our economy. Even more importantly, we had no action on climate change, and an administration that pretended that what might be the greatest challenge to modern civilization was nothing to worry about. I suspect our descendants, if they care about these things, will indeed regard the election of 2000 as a decisive point in the history not just of our country, but of the world.”

- Tim O’Reilly (via azspot)

US city moves to combat obesity epidemic. Are Americans aware of...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:30:23 -0600

US city moves to combat obesity epidemic.

Are Americans aware of the phrase “American Supersize” (meant was a critique of American car, gun, sports, excess/BIG culture) or is that just a European thing?

Bangladeshi builds hospital for villagers. An inspiring story.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:28:00 -0600

Bangladeshi builds hospital for villagers. An inspiring story.

Afghan teen punches her way into Olympics

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 20:27:11 -0600

Afghan teen punches her way into Olympics

These shrimp without eyes were caught off the Gulf Coast in...

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:12:52 -0600

These shrimp without eyes were caught off the Gulf Coast in late 2011.

BP Hauls in $7.7 Billion in Profits, Gulf Fishermen Haul in Shrimp with No Eyes

Oil giant BP, the company behind the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, reported profits of $7.7 billion for the last quarter of 2011. Company executives and industry analysts sounded bullish about the company’s future in a recent New York Times article, saying they had set aside enough money to compensate victims of the Gulf spill and had plans to expand drilling operations in the Gulf.

BP seems to be recovering nicely after the disaster, which killed 11 people and pumped 170 million gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. But stories from the Gulf suggest that the region is anything but healed.

The Gulf has been plagued with a suite of unexplained afflictions. Gulf fishermen say this is the worst season they can remember, with catches down 80 percent or more. Shrimp boats come home nearly empty, hauling in deformed, discolored shrimp, even shrimp without eyes. Tar balls and dead dolphins still wash up on beaches. Scientists report huge tar mats below the sand, “like vanilla swirl ice cream.” Read more in NRDC’s Switchboard blog.

via nrdc