Engineer

Report: Obama Team Has Dire Economic Outlook — It's quite unsettling to talk to members of Barack Obama's transition teams these days, especially those who are helping with the economics portfolio. Without going into details, the sense I get from them is that they are very worried that the economy will get a lot worse before it gets better. Not just worse... a lot worse. As in -- double digit unemployment without the wiggle factors. Huge declines in aggregate demand. Significant, persistent deficits. That's one reason why the Obama administration seems to be open to listening to every economist with an idea and is stocking the staff with... [Tags: aggregate demand, barack obama, declines, double digit unemployment, economic collapse]

Facebook Video Goes HD and Embeddable — Facebook just announced a major upgrade to its year-and-a-half-old video application. The site will now play videos of quality up to 720p, though it has a file size limit of 1 GB and time limit of 20 minutes. Videos will be embeddable (but not in HD) on blogs and other websites. Embedded above: A video of my puppy from earlier this year. Definitely not in HD but it’s what I have at the moment, since it doesn’t look like you can embed other people’s videos, only your own. This is no tiny (or cheap) little operation. The site sees 100,000... [Tags: blogs, chris putnam, embeddable, engineer, facebook friends]

Microsoft's Google Envy (Part 396) — Microsoft's new online head, Qi Lu, is an engineer. It suggests company is trying to copy Google's engineer-driven culture.... [Tags: driven culture, engineer, envy, google, microsoft]

Is TiVo About To Launch Amazon VOD In HD? — I just grabbed that screenshot off my TiVo Series3, note the new menu item “Available In High Definition”! It looks like someone jumped the gun, if you select that item it takes you to the same screen as “Top Categories & Special Deals”. But clearly this is in indication that HD downloads are coming, and probably soon. Most likely someone flipped the wrong bit and I’m seeing a menu item meant for testers. We’ve been getting hints for a while now, back in May in an interview TiVo’s Jim Denney said we’d see Amazon HD content in the “not... [Tags: amazon unbox, amp, distant future, downloads, engineer]

Have you ever found yourself writing a function to do something that seems pretty simple, then months or years later you find out there's a built-in function to accomplish exactly what you were doing? Maybe you didn't know where to look or the built-in function's name was confusing. I'd argue that Java's toUpperCase() does not fall in this category. Somehow I imagine that if you were to reverse engineer the built-in method, it wouldn't look like this implementation (submitted anonymously): private static String upperCaseIt(String Account) { String result = ""; int i = 0; while (Account.length() > i) { if... [Tags: account string, engineer, implementation, job, static string]

...would you? Getting into Stanford Business School changed my life. In college, I trained to be a mediocre engineer (I didn't set out to be mediocre at it, but I sure was). I was on track to become Dilbert. Getting into Stanford meant jumping the track. Going from one path to another in one fell swoop. I didn't learn much of substance at business school, but that's fine, because the school allowed me to make a graceful transition. I had permission to reinvent and a platform to do it. Which leads to this post, this track and this opportunity. (Please... [Tags: achievers, apprenticeship, charm school, conceit, encouragement]

Hang Lu on Being a Chemical and Biomolecular Engineer — The nervous system is both beautiful and complex.... [Tags: engineer, lu, nervous system]

EFF Blasts Apple For Fraudulent DMCA Takedown Of Wiki Page — It's no secret that Apple is excessively protective of the way some of its systems work. That includes trying to stop any other application, other than iTunes, from controlling an iPod. That's a bit of a pain for those of us who like to use alternative apps, such as Songbird. Because of this, there are plenty of folks who work out ways to reverse engineer Apple's system to make this work. Specifically, they need to understand a file called iTunesDB, which Apple tries to prevent others from writing to with a checksum hash. When Apple first introduced the hash it... [Tags: alternative software, apple, apps, blasts, copyright infringement]

I Want Sandy & Stikkit Now Owned by Twitter — by Michelle Lentz This week Twitter quietly acquired Oregon start-up values of n. It was a simple thing really. Rael Dornfest, the founder of values of n, has accepted a full-time job with Twitter. In the process, their two fairly popular applications: I Want Sandy and Stikkit, are going away as of Dec 8. So if you’re a loyal user of I Want Sandy, as I know some of you are, it’s time to start looking for a new virtual personal assistant. According to the Twitter blog: Today we’re thrilled to announce that Twitter has acquired the assets of Values... [Tags: amp, apps, assets, email, engineer]

Guns N' Roses engineer: Chinese Democracy sessions "technically flawless" — Studio insider talks to the LA Times... [Tags: chinese democracy, engineer, guns n roses, insider, la times]

The Austrian way of justice seems better in such a case — When the Austrian building engineer Josef Fritzl locked up his daughter in the cellar, raping her for almost a quarter of a century and fathering seven children by her, it seemed like a crime that went to the dark heart of Austrian society with its culture of secrecy.... [Tags: austrian society, dark heart, engineer, secrecy]

links for 2008-11-25 — Making Twitter Smarter (tags: twitter) Twitter buys a company, closes it, keeps its founder/engineer » VentureBeat (tags: twitter) So long, Sandy: Dornfest heading to Twitter | Webware - CNET (tags: twitter) TwitterCounter API launches with Clicky & Mint support (tags: twitter) FaceReviews: Facebook News, Application Reviews and Social Networks (tags: twitter) Scobleizer — Tech geek blogger » Blog Archive The Twitterization of Conversations « (tags: twitter) When Twitter Met Facebook: The Acquisition Deal That Fail-Whaled | Kara Swisher | BoomTown | AllThingsD (tags: twitter)... [Tags: acquisition, amp, api, application reviews, blog archive]

The Palm Tribeca Opens, Odor Migrates — The fourth New York City location of The Palm restaurant opened on Friday in Tribeca. This outpost is located in a luxury condo on 200 Chambers Street, and some residents there are none too thrilled about their proximity to the popular steakhouse. One gripes on the Wired New York board: "The Palm Restaurant is ruining my life...The entire lobby smells of the exhaust of the Palm Restaurant. Also certain hallways in the building and interiors of apts are also complaining about the smell." Indeed, Curbed has obtained a memo sent to tenants assuring them that "the building's managers met with... [Tags: architect, aroma, chambers street, city location, construction experts]

Visualizing the Five Senses — If you’ve ever had problems understanding the differences between wine varieties and the sutble notes tasting they hold, help is at hand.  Brooklyn-based engineer and designer Carl Tashian has created a wine flavor visualization tool to show the relationship between the flavors on over 5,000 wine tasting notes.   Taken from a major Australian wine magazine, the information was pulled together to assist a class at ITP @ NYU called Visualizing the Five Senses. Wine Flavours, Visually Speaking © Claudia Cukrov for PSFK, 2008. | Permalink | Comments | Add to del.icio.us... [Tags: australian wine, brooklyn, carl tashian, engineer, five senses]

Twitter Acq-Hires Former O'Reilly CTO Dornfest — Twitter has brought on another Web tech guru -- former O'Reilly CTO Rael Dornfest -- via an acquisition of his tiny startup. Twitter CEO Evan Williams writes: Today we're thrilled to announce that Twitter has acquired the assets of Values of n, which include an intelligent sticky-note application as well as a personal productivity application that works over email, SMS, and the Web. Rael has already started adding energy and momentum to the team as a full time Twitter engineer. Twitter will shut down Values of n's products; they might emerge someday as Twitter features or as open-source libraries. No... [Tags: acq, acquisition, assets, ceo, cto]

Twitter has acquired Values of n, the company behind the email tools Skkiit and Sandy. Twitter head Evan Williams said in a post to the Twitter Blog that the acquisition was part for the intellectual property, part to acquire the services of Values of n’s Rael Dornfest. Dornfest is a former Chief Technology Officer at O’Reilly Media and was an early participant in the emergence of RSS. Dornfest joins the Twitter team as an engineer. Values of n clients though wont be happy with the deal: Twitter will shut down both Skikit and Sandy December 8. Williams notes that... [Tags: acquisition, australian prime minister, blog, chief technology officer, december 8]

Twitter buys a company, closes it, keeps its founder/engineer — The micro-messaging service Twitter, fresh off its rejection of an offer to be acquired by Facebook, has turned around and made a purchase itself: A personal productivity and information management solutions company called Values of n, Twitter reports on its blog. Of course, Twitter doesn’t actually plan to do anything with Values of n, and will be shuttering it immediately. Instead, Twitter was after its founder and main engineer, Rael Dornfest. Dornfest, who was previously the chief technology officer for O’Reilly Media as well as the editor of a number of their Hacks books, is described as “one of the... [Tags: bits and bobs, chief technology officer, core product, digital secretary, email inbox]

Twitter Hires Rael Dornfest, Shutters Values of n — Twitter just announced on the company blog that the company has acquired the assets of Portland, Oregon based Values of n and brought its well-known engineer founder Rael Dornfest on to the Twitter staff. We're covering the deal in more depth on our new blog about tech company hires Jobwire. Please join us there for more details about what's sure to be a very interesting move. Sponsor... [Tags: assets, blog, engineer, portland oregon, shutters]

A great Google article, the difference between 'easy' and 'simple,' and why this is a problem for Windows 7 — The New York Times' David Carr wrote something that made me really sit up and take notice this morning, and for so many reasons that it's actually kind of hard to explain. First, the basic premise of his article, which I agree with totally, is that Google's Web applications have taken hold with a certain audience because they're so simple: Not long ago, someone invited me out to the Googleplex, the nickname for Google’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. The fact is, I already live there. And it’s starting to worry me. My increasingly exclusive relationship with Google started with... [Tags: audience, david carr, default database, e mail, ecosystem]

iPodHash Project Seeks BlueWiki Author, Hopes for Help From EFF — Sam Odio, who runs the iPodHash project mentioned the other day, has posted a followup on the legal tussle that in which Apple has engaged him for atempting to reverse-engineer the hash used to encrypt the iTunesDB in recent iPods. He writes in that post: "I've received a flood of emails from interested individuals who want to help. Most importantly, I was contacted by Fred von Lohmann from the EFF. They're currently evaluating whether they will represent us against any potential Apple litigation. This would be great, because it will enable BluWiki to continue to host the project while working... [Tags: apple, eff, engineer, flood, fred von lohmann]