154 months of building solutions at AWS taught me something unexpected: the most resilient professionals are people who can build cloud architecture, debug a cultural problem, coach a group of executives, mentor a struggling colleague, and learn something entirely new by Thursday. Think Robert Heinl…
Kevin Kelly, co-founder and executive editor of Wired magazine, recently turned 70. Happy Birthday!
His birthday gift to us all is “103 bits of unsolicited advice”. Each one brilliant and full of wisdom. And all are free.
The paradox of “free” is that people tend to not value the “free” things, exactly because it’s free: If it didn’t cost much, it’s probably not worth much.
If somebody took these and added an anecdote or two to each one, plus some background, they could turn this into a bestseller. Probably a series of bestsellers, too.
But here they are, hard-earned lessons for all of us. Free for those who care, and who recognize the value of great advice.
Don’t underestimate “free”. Free can be valuable.
A while ago, I argued that the world of IT is changing, and that change is good. And that as a result of change, many people would need to change their jobs.
Well, I did it. Last Tuesday was my last working day at Oracle.
In Summer 2010 I learned about a cool new geeky movie called Iron Sky (no link, ironsky.net no longer exists) that was crowd-funded. I decided to help finance it with a small sum.
Then the second Iron Sky teaser came out and I thought: Wow, this is looking really good! And I invested some more.
In December 2010, I was invited to attend the Iron Sky shootings in Frankfurt together with my brother. This is where we got to meet the crew, the actors, the people behind the movie and other investors. And I thought: Wow, this is not only cool, this is for real! Everybody was 100% determined to make this the coolest movie ever, and everybody put in so much attention to detail, love and true craftmanship that I thought: “Yep, this is going to be a true movie milestone!” And I also got to shoot an interview with the director and the inventor of Iron Sky. This time, my brother and I together invested a bit more to help this baby fly.
If you’ve been following my blog or the Systemhelden.com podcast for some time, then you probably know that I’m a big fan of and small investor in the movie Iron Sky, a crowd-funded science-fiction comedy about the Nazis who went to the dark side of the moon in 1945 and come back to conquer Earth in 2018.
A few weeks ago, I had the privilege of attending a pre-screening of the movie’s beta version in Helsinki, Finland. What can I say? It exceeded my high expectations!
A deserted street in the docks. The rain is pouring.
A small, old, flower-power style painted Volkswagen van drives by at high speed, then stops below a lifting crane, tires screeching.
The door opens and a woman stumbles out of the vehicle, as if trying to escape. A tall man in uniform catches her violently. Intense exchange of words, probably four-lettered. She hesitates, then follows him back into the van.
“Cut!”
My brother and I are watching from the side of the road. It’s a scene from the upcoming movie Iron Sky (no link, ironsky.net no longer exists), a science-fiction comedy about the Nazis who escaped with UFOs to the dark side of the moon and who come back in 2018 to conquer the earth.
What?
It’s a long, fun story, but you better see it for yourself. Early 2012, that is, when the movie is done.
Whenever you run a professional server, a home server, a hosted virtual server or just a blog on a shared web space, you run a service that provides something useful to your users, readers or whatever consumers your service caters to.
Too bad if things go wrong and you’re the last to notice.
Enter Monitis.com: This service allows you to easily track your servers, websites, blogs or anything else that can be accessed through the internet, or that is able to run a simple agent. Monitoring from the cloud, if you will, at reasonable prices. And if all you need is some basic monitoring, then there’s a free version called mon.itor.us, too.
Let’s check this out in some detail:
Every year, on the last Friday of July, Sysadmin Day is celebrated around the world.
You know, the guy (or gal) that makes sure you always receive your emails on time, strips away the spam, cuddles your web server so you can write blog articles, or makes sure the network is always online, so you can read your favorite blogs. Or install new servers and storage so your web experience becomes faster and so your data is never lost.
Sysadmins often have a hard time: Noone calls them to tell them “Thank you for delivering all my emails!” or “Thanks for making sure my data is backed up every day!”. Instead, they only get phonecalls when something goes wrong, or worse yet, some anonymous electronic complaint in some soulless ticketing system.
Therefore, this Friday, the 30th of July, 2010, think about your sysadmin, call her up and say something nice, or consider giving them a gift. Here are some geeky gift ideas for sysadmins to celebrate Sysadmin Day 2010, from low-budget to truely-devoted-appreciation pricing order.
After all, you really don’t want your sysadmin to turn into a grumpy BOFH, do you?
War is waging in the galaxy. This time it’s not the Rebels against the Empire, or Good vs. Evil.
No, this war is different, and it has been going on ever since products designs companies entities existed.
What I mean is the war between Quality and Popularity.
Let me explain:
(Drumroll, Roman fanfare, then dramatic Anime action trailer a la Mortal Kombat, etc.)
As of May 21st, Google officially declared war on the Apple iPhone.
Sure, there was some teasing here and there for weeks, if not months, but this is serious.
Science Fiction stretches our imagination and makes us dream about cool, future, distant worlds and realities. And it’s fun, too.
But Science Fiction also serves an important purpose: It prepares society for the future. What will happen when technology X becomes available? How will our work, social and emotional lives change? What challenges and opportunities will we face, once certain new technologies become available?
There’s also a feedback circle around scientists, engineers and SF writers: Scientists discover new laws of nature, engineers apply them to create new technologies and SF authors show us the possibilities, inspiring the scientists and engineers where to look next, what new principle to explore and which new technologies to make real.
Here are my top 3 Science Fiction, but realistic novels of all time that help us prepare for the future. They are all based on solid futuristic research, still they are mind-boggling and thought-provoking. When you read them, you’ll get a true glimpse of the future - and view the present and the past in a new light.