tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46022717770380724062024-03-21T20:00:39.822-07:00Valley ProofsSilicon Valley notes by Boris Debic.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-64549172236616301702022-03-24T03:32:00.002-07:002022-03-24T03:32:14.927-07:00AI at Google<div>A snippet I found relevant to Google in Thomas H. Davenport's book The AI Advantage.</div><div><br /></div>"Google has been, perhaps not surprisingly, the most active developer
and user of AI among the Internet giants—and perhaps all companies in
the world. The company, working with Stanford professor Andrew
Ng, began to research AI (deep learning in particular) in its Google X
research labs in 2011. The project came to be known as Google Brain.
The method of choice was deep learning, which was used for image
recognition, among other tasks. By 2012 the group had conquered one
of the most pressing problems of humankind: how to get a machine to
identify a photo of a cat on the internet.<div><br /></div><div>The next year, Google hired Geoffrey Hinton, the University of
Toronto researcher who had helped to revive neural networks. In 2014
Google bought DeepMind, a London-based firm with deep expertise in
deep learning. The group’s tools were used to help AlphaGo, Google’s
machine that plays the ancient game Go, beat one of the world’s best
human players. In 2016, the Google Brain organization helped Google
make a major improvement in the ability of Google Translate to do accurate
translations. By that year Google, or its parent company Alphabet,
was employing machine learning in over 2,700 different projects across
the company, including search algorithms (RankBrain), self-driving
cars (now in the Alphabet subsidiary Waymo), and medical diagnostics
(in the Calico subsidiary).18 In the Silicon Valley tradition, Google
also made its TensorFlow machine learning library available for free in
2015 as an open source project, and it has become popular among more
sophisticated companies that use AI."</div><div><br /></div><div>Thomas skips on some of the early history of AI at Google which traces back to another popular Silicon Valley startup and later on public company Epiphany (later renamed E.piphany due to naming rights being owned by a bible publisher in Indiana.). The machine learning team from Epiphany, which included my former E.piphany colleagues Mehran Sahami, now teaching AI at Stanford, and Sridhar Ramaswamy, later VP of all of Google Ads products. Both of them worked on (myself included) SmartASS, or Smart Ads Serving System, which was a giant probabilistic prediction model building and ads serving framework which uses logistic regression for ad click through rate prediction. SmartASS does this very hard calculation in a special linear approximation thus making this prediction practically possible in a resonable ammount of time. Over the course of years SmartASS was refined and extended with many different subsystems ranging from topical modelling, click spam detection, fraud detection, content ad classification and many other improvements.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiJRRl9ENbBlgUy7O0yxhCn_84g5o6KFFxuXfYMT_pcZ0-vpb4SWrR3pMcNbJSvaiINVrl1xMhFBm4CWzY-b5fo1OEJPkxH4s4gpk1wYmT0-uEM3KAvJgJ6E2_Ku1xcSdGTh-vK1HOF7RZYwpc4mH1ye8b2TNZWK6A_viOmo7z3kUPHcZFnUAhHg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="103" data-original-width="263" height="125" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjiJRRl9ENbBlgUy7O0yxhCn_84g5o6KFFxuXfYMT_pcZ0-vpb4SWrR3pMcNbJSvaiINVrl1xMhFBm4CWzY-b5fo1OEJPkxH4s4gpk1wYmT0-uEM3KAvJgJ6E2_Ku1xcSdGTh-vK1HOF7RZYwpc4mH1ye8b2TNZWK6A_viOmo7z3kUPHcZFnUAhHg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-30737868530347852122020-07-02T15:25:00.000-07:002020-07-02T15:25:04.105-07:00Engineering a Google Pixel Phone<br />
The battery on this Pixel 3 phone has swollen badly. What are the factors that led to a bad phone in less than 12 months?<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_YJRxvgmDz-7w8WSBnhckBo9QhflYZK-QYrvvuK_N1CG20XdEUb8FttG66s_rESJdG6UBMRBDAvHzaz9XCZyhWNFX6AkHyPrCp5BplaOdFyqR_vsZ9gLemTJrysmH7d8b-Eleu5DdX0/s1600/PixelGap.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="494" data-original-width="1600" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH_YJRxvgmDz-7w8WSBnhckBo9QhflYZK-QYrvvuK_N1CG20XdEUb8FttG66s_rESJdG6UBMRBDAvHzaz9XCZyhWNFX6AkHyPrCp5BplaOdFyqR_vsZ9gLemTJrysmH7d8b-Eleu5DdX0/s640/PixelGap.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
* Structurally deficient plastic?<br />
* Adhesive deterioration?<br />
* Poor energy management subsystem?<br />
* Cradle for overnight charging, while the phone keeps networking?<br />
* Substandard component heat characteristics?<br />
* Not accounting for battery aging?<br />
<br />
None of them, well all of them, but none of them. Design choices today are a combination of engineers making bad choices, and management pursuing short term financial goals.<br />
<br />
How does an organization fix this? There is only one way. Having a company proclaim clear, public, values about each of their products. Abstract values? Values that please the board of directors?<br />
<br />
No.<br />
<br />
Values an average consumer can read, understand and be happy about.<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-66080180005435744832017-04-16T12:43:00.001-07:002017-04-16T12:45:07.376-07:00Industrial maternalismI completed today a purchase of one more piece of Silicon Valley history, the <a href="http://www.tubecollectors.org/eimac/archives/100th(44).pdf">EIMAC 100TH</a> Transmitting Triode Radio Vacuum Tube. For $22 I will receive a working triode, with the birght prosepct of lighting its filaments again perhaps not to transmit but at least to show its colors on the oscilloscope.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7vGZ3qcnPSFpKI9dHO56oB6W8L_KbPgoYCcAozCiPDGs1Drk-7IBXArjb1n-rYKioWZep-ilvKcp0xXLVNJZd7KSJex-ynMzyBlBPZ-jPBf-DugWNlurNLD3KiFovgFuiVtxaSYwhA/s1600/il_570xN.974012826_36md.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-7vGZ3qcnPSFpKI9dHO56oB6W8L_KbPgoYCcAozCiPDGs1Drk-7IBXArjb1n-rYKioWZep-ilvKcp0xXLVNJZd7KSJex-ynMzyBlBPZ-jPBf-DugWNlurNLD3KiFovgFuiVtxaSYwhA/s320/il_570xN.974012826_36md.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
EIMAC operated in nearby San Bruno this was not an accident, as the San Francisco Bay Area was an early center of ham radio with about 10% of the operators in the United States in the early 30's. Incidentally in a new sense San Bruno is still a ham radio hub today. Except the radio has been replaced by the internet, and the communications device is YouTube, based in San Bruno.<br />
<br />
There's are some more interesting technical bits. The EITEL company was a spin-off from Heintz & Kaufman with the purpose to produce tubes that worked on lower voltages than those available to the amateur market at the time. In 1932 two radio amateurs, Jack McCullough (W6CHE) and Bill Eitel (W6UF) who at the time worked at Heintz and Kaufman, decided to build high power transmitters to work some of the 20 meter overseas stations being heard in California. They found to their dismay that the expensive transmitting tube they purchased refused to work at 1,000 volts and that was all the high voltage their power supply would provide for them. This had the effect to reduce the price of building radio-transmitters and very likely contributed to their affordability and expansion of use at the time, without undercutting the high end of the market. With the price of $24 in the thirties this is equivalent to about $450 in 2017. Certainly a much more affordable unit for the Ham radio population.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKvvAb3S4cD1DmsiQSQgMpOPVpla6i2pt2iwK0YoL4mGqAD4eEKOUXBObaEiyuZQIylLnXSLCIpONfoAj_wnN3SGUGcj9Xfu5-uwwhyyCmW21_gewuXUJ_YHqisPiZbKskm-ZK23em2Q/s1600/Eitel-Mccullough_1934_ad.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="222" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKvvAb3S4cD1DmsiQSQgMpOPVpla6i2pt2iwK0YoL4mGqAD4eEKOUXBObaEiyuZQIylLnXSLCIpONfoAj_wnN3SGUGcj9Xfu5-uwwhyyCmW21_gewuXUJ_YHqisPiZbKskm-ZK23em2Q/s320/Eitel-Mccullough_1934_ad.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
In late 1935 some tubes were sold to the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory for use in an experimental radar set that worked on 200 MHz. The 50T was the only tube that provided sufficient pulse power and that was able to stand up to the high plate voltage. More tubes were ordered by the military and in 1939 the first Navy sea radar tests used EIMAC tubes.The company later on moved its production from San Bruno to the nearby town of San Carlos.<br />
<br />
The EITEL legacy still lives today as part of Palo Alto based <a href="http://www.cpii.com/product.cfm/1/28/127">CPI</a>.<br />
<br />
Now why, industrial maternalism? It turns out that a union organizing drive in 1939-40 by the strong Bay area labor movement was fought off by EIMAC by adopting a strategy of welfare capitalism which included pensions and other generous benefits, profit sharing, and such extras as a medical clinic and a cafeteria. This is not unlike Google and YouTube being the best place to work for years in a row. If you were working at Google or Apple today you may be thinking this is a new development or perhaps just a more recent one tracing back to the ascent of the high tech computing industry. Well you would be wrong, this mode of operation seems to have started much earlier at least as we see with EIMAC in the mid 30's.<br />
<br />
So what is this welfare capitalism, wikipedia has the following entry: "Welfare capitalism is capitalism that includes social welfare policies.[1] Welfare capitalism is also the practice of businesses providing welfare services to their employees. Welfare capitalism in this second sense, or <b>industrial paternalism</b>, was centered on industries that employed skilled labor and peaked in the mid-20th century."<br />
<br />
Now when a symmetries inclined physicist's brain looks at "industrial paternalism" the immediate reaction is -- Wait, what's up with "industrial maternalism"? A quick Google search find exactly zero results for the term, leaving an ample opportunity of defining it. So with that I have sent my colleagues at Google a message:<br />
<br />
"Is it not time for some "corporate maternalism"?! Not even a single hit on the term in Google search, the opportunity to define the term and make it a better cousin of paternalism. A caring version of welfare capitalism that works for us in the 21st century."<br />
<br />
Oh, wait...<br />
<br />
I better get back to the vacuum tube research.<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-69698335504604254572017-03-29T13:15:00.003-07:002020-09-11T02:27:38.812-07:00Hiring<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Production Pro is hiring. We are always on the lookout for smart engineers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggoE5_OPum7vprk7QA5RrIJ2WpGQRMh3MY_GDev65gombHOitTv4F2HgBwnnt1zUpgRsnPbGovIRdJ5DFsQB-tV0b4H82i2WK-wn5PAGA0XDBkhCX6q7f0gSLj3wqm2pMlZW116D0pug/s1600/ppro-video-thumb.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggoE5_OPum7vprk7QA5RrIJ2WpGQRMh3MY_GDev65gombHOitTv4F2HgBwnnt1zUpgRsnPbGovIRdJ5DFsQB-tV0b4H82i2WK-wn5PAGA0XDBkhCX6q7f0gSLj3wqm2pMlZW116D0pug/s320/ppro-video-thumb.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Apprentice Systems Engineer</span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-72fa0b6b-1bb2-2996-2595-be32f0c9a85a" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transform the way film, theatre and television are created. We’re looking for a systems engineer with experience designing software systems and algorithms to join our small and mighty team.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://production.pro/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Click here to watch ProductionPro shake up Silicon Valley for the arts!</span></a></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we do:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Films and plays are complex, creative endeavors, with hundreds of people working together on something that often changes daily. ProductionPro visually assembles all of a production's moving parts into one, dynamic platform </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">–</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> opening the door for a multitude of potential applications in the future. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why we do it:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The entertainment industry has been underserved by tech for decades. ProductionPro exists to help visual storytellers focus on doing what they do best – creating what the world watches.</span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who we are:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Our collaborative team is a medley of experienced software engineers, film, and theatre industry vets, and business strategists, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with guidance from </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0197636/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stephen Daldry</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0102122/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robert Boyett</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisdebic" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boris Debic</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nd </span><a href="http://norvig.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peter Norvig</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ll Be:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making impactful contributions to the backend and client</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Working with the entire team to maintain a state-of-the-art code base and architecture</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Developing interfaces, protocols, data models, and services using a combination of (but not limited to) Python, Node.js, C++, Docker, AWS, Firebase, and PostgreSQL</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Touching the code at almost every level, from AWS Elastic Beanstalk through data visualization algorithms on the iPad client</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tuning technical and organizational processes from experience and experimentation</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Staying up to date with, contributing to, and applying the latest open source technologies</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Have:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Experience working independently and on a team, designing efficient algorithms that solve new and unexplored problems</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A bachelor’s degree in computer science or math</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A demonstrated knowledge of Python and REST APIs </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An understanding of Django and Amazon Web Services are preferred</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An ability to learn iOS, UIKit, XCode, and Objective-C </span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A demonstrated ability to balance long-term vision with short-term functionality</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A background in algorithms and mathematics</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An appreciation for film, theatre, and good storytelling</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bonus points if you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have some technical contributions to show off (GitHub, App Store, or publications)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b>
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you enjoy solving hard problems and want to enable the next generation of world-class entertainment creatives, please apply.</span></div>
<br />
<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a New York-based position that offers a competitive salary and vested equity commensurate with experience, qualifications, and industry norms.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Principal Systems Engineer</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b id="docs-internal-guid-8b167991-1c7b-3b51-fede-61177172f28a" style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Transform the way film, theatre and television are created. We’re looking for a principal engineer with 5-10+ years experience designing software systems and algorithms to join our small and mighty team.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<a href="http://production.pro/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Click here to watch ProductionPro shake up Silicon Valley for the arts!</span></a></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">What we do:</span><span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9.5pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Films and plays are complex, creative endeavors, with hundreds of people working together on something that often changes daily. ProductionPro visually assembles all of a production's moving parts into one, dynamic platform </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">–</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> opening the door for a multitude of potential applications in the future. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Why we do it:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> The entertainment industry has been underserved by tech for decades. ProductionPro exists to help visual storytellers focus on doing what they do best – creating what the world watches.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Who we are:</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> Our collaborative team is a medley of experienced software engineers, film and theatre industry vets, and business strategists, </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">with guidance from </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0197636/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Stephen Daldry</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0102122/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robert Boyett</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/borisdebic" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Boris Debic</span></a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">, a</span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">nd </span><a href="http://norvig.com/" style="text-decoration: none;"><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #1155cc; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: underline; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Peter Norvig</span></a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">. </span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You’ll Be:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Making impactful contributions to the backend</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Engaging the entire team in maintaining a state-of-the-art code base and architecture</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Developing interfaces, protocols, data models, and services using a combination of (but not limited to) Python, Node.js, C++, Docker, AWS, Firebase, and PostgreSQL</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Touching the code at almost every level, from AWS Elastic Beanstalk through data visualization algorithms on the iPad client</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Tuning technical and organizational processes from experience and experimentation</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mentoring engineers in best practices</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Staying up to date with, contributing to, and applying the latest open source technologies</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">You Have:</span></div>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Experience working independently and on a team, designing efficient algorithms that solve new and unexplored problems</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Programming experience applying object-oriented paradigms in the context of complex, large-scale applications – code bases of 1,000,000+ lines</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A demonstrated ability to balance long-term vision with short-term functionality</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A strong background in algorithms and mathematics</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Research experience in algorithms or systems</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">A Master's Degree in computer science or related technical field or equivalent practical experience</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">An appreciation for film, theatre, and good storytelling</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<ul style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Extensive experience developing real-time and RESTful systems</span></div>
</li>
<li dir="ltr" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; list-style-type: disc; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"><div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Bonus points if you </span><span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">have some technical contributions to show off (GitHub, App Store, or publications)</span></div>
</li>
</ul>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br /></b></span>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.2; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 9pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">If you enjoy solving hard problems and want to enable the next generation of world-class entertainment creatives, please apply.</span></div>
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 8pt; font-style: italic; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 8pt; vertical-align: baseline;">This is a New York-based position that offers a competitive salary and vested equity commensurate with experience, qualifications, and industry norms.</span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-55197823646587729322015-12-12T19:55:00.001-08:002017-04-22T17:44:45.659-07:00 On Computer Security in the Mobile Age<div style="font-size: medium;">
I was looking over a stack of old conference papers and found this <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_Jl94nModqdbkJGd1prcXJJdzA/view?usp=sharing" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">review</a> of the paper written by myself in collaboration with Lucijan Carić, which we presented in 1996 at the Virus Bulletin Conference in Brighton, UK.<br />
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"After a welcome coffee break, Joe Wells (IBM) presented a paper on the PC-virus ‘hot zones’, after which Lucijan Caric and Boris Debic provided a timely reminder of the implications of an Internet-enabled world: if malware is able to send data silently to remote sites, then the problems, unfortunately, are all too clear."</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
The presentation was immediately following Joe Wells'. This was quite a recognition at the time, as Joe is and was back then widely regarded as one of the <a href="http://www.lavasoft.com/mylavasoft/company/press/software-security-visionary-joseph-wells-named-chief-technology-officer-at-lavasoft" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">foremost</a> experts in understanding security threats in the wild. </div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqIPNLmpe76es0zbQVfHNrmYgL-VwFK-tgb9ZHUjW-JTeupnX5VKVD9xHTmIRPss-ZdI83BYp6DIeMWDqBardzKPhekG60rZR9pZxQPYLjmwDAUYVrYdPNuwii4quZIIcszkyO8GcyA/s1600/PanelVB1996.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOqIPNLmpe76es0zbQVfHNrmYgL-VwFK-tgb9ZHUjW-JTeupnX5VKVD9xHTmIRPss-ZdI83BYp6DIeMWDqBardzKPhekG60rZR9pZxQPYLjmwDAUYVrYdPNuwii4quZIIcszkyO8GcyA/s400/PanelVB1996.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
The paper had a couple of highlights. It was the first to establish a new class of threats. A category where threats would take advantage of the Internet, not only as a propagation medium as was already shown by Morris' out of control experiment with the Internet Worm, but a category where the threat uses the Internet for propagation, command and control, and data exfiltration or corruption. Keep in mind that at the time of this conference most computer viruses used media such as floppy disks, or removable hard disks for their propagation. The Internet was still in its early commercial days, not many nodes were yet connected at the approximately 10,000 institutions connecting to it. The protocols in use were fairly simple and without many features which could be exploited. After all they were designed for a benign and mostly collaborative academic setting.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"Morris thought he would need to build a 'global database' of infected computers. However, he admitted, doing that could prove 'really hard.' By the time he released the worm two weeks later, he had only made small steps toward implementing these ideas. He never created a command-and-control system that would have allowed him to send instructions to infected machines."</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
The key part of the paper was a full description followed by a demo of an example exploit which used a command and control intermediary to take complete control of the target computer system. The publication of this threat received a great deal of attention by researchers from industry, notably IBM and MacAffee whose representatives took part at the conference. It was not until almost three years later when the first attack using this combination was reported. Two trends were of particular consequence for creating a fertile field for these type of attacks. The first was the growing peopularity of the Internet browser and consequently a rise in the number of computers serving http and other protocols.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"In 1996, Netscape's share of the browser market reached 86% (with Internet Explorer edging up 10%); but then Microsoft began integrating its browser with its operating system and bundling deals with OEMs, and within two years the balance had reversed."</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
The number of computers and PCs connected to the Internet started a phase of rapid growth. Second - legislature was going through the U.S. Congress and Senate to place incentives for turning the Internet from an academic infrastructure to a commerce medium benefiting wider society.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"Four major versions of the Internet Tax Freedom Act currently are under consideration. The Senate version of this proposed legislation, S. 442, was approved in amended form by the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee on November 4, 1997. The House version, H.R. 1054, was approved in amended form by subcommittees of both the Commerce and Judiciary Committees on October 9, 1997. A new Senate version (S. 1888) called the "Internet Fairness and Interstate Responsibility Act"</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
July 8, 1997 was my first summer in Silicon Valley. I clearly remember when Internet traffic records were broken as NASA's website started serving images taken by Pathfinder on Mars. Many of these I have downloaded myself and they are still burned on CDs in my archive. Remember this was a time before Google and the ubiquity of information and it being available at any time provided a connection. This internet based broadcast generated 46 million hits in just a single day. The Internet reached a critical mass where it was now an important part of the way we consume and publish news (the word blog or web log was coined the same year), the way we communicate, and in the way we start to transact business. It is the following year, in 1998, when the the threat model described by us at the VB 1996 conference was reported. CNN reported:</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"They created and released the program Back Orifice last year to the general public at the Las Vegas hacker and security conference DEF CON. The program allows its users to remotely control victims' desktops, potentially undetected. At this year's conference, on July 9, Sir Dystic says the cult will outdo itself and release Back Orifice 2000. The program, he says, is smaller, nimbler, and twice as nefarious."</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
Security experts had a mixed feeling about making a security point by releasing the threat into the open. But they also warned against Microsoft's lack of priority when it comes to how they treat the security of their operating system. Something which will be a thorn in Microsoft's side for many years to come.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"Computer security experts question the Cult of the Dead Cow's intent. Releasing a hacking tool like Back Orifice 2000 in the name of safeguarding computer privacy is a bit like the American Medical Association infecting cattle with the deadly e. coli bacteria to inspire food companies to sell healthier meats."</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
Back Orifice and its successor Back Orifice 2k (shortened to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Orifice" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">BO</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Back_Orifice_2000" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">BO2k</a>) are a computer program designed for remote system control. It enabled a user to control a computer running the Microsoft Windows operating systems of the time from a remote location. This included control of the input devices, surveillance of the target computer, firewall tunneling, hiding its presence from the unsuspecting user and other capabilities. The name was a play on words of Microsoft BackOffice Server software.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
It is exactly this scenario that we have predicted in our 1996 paper. From then on the phenomenon of Internet channel enabled threats, as we dubbed them then, only continued to grow and expand in reach. Currently such threats poise serious challenges not only for users and companies but to entire economies and states. Many non-state and state actors continue developing their capabilites in this area to enagage in both defensive and offensive activities. </div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
I should point the reader to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDH4m6M-ZIU" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">Stuxnet</a>, probably one of the best documented examples of this family of software from the desktop era developed jointly by the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&seid=auto&smid=tw-nytimespolitics&pagewanted=all" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">US and Israel</a>. While we in our paper from the perspective of computer security experts described the system as a threat, it's needless to say that any such system can and will likely be used as a cyberweapon, where a cyberweapon is defined as a malware agent employed for military, paramilitary, or intelligence objectives.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;">
<img class="CToWUd a6T" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiaNVAcIxiOdgtVnXN4SnCRduU8vmZ-C_uwykzAQx4MHvJiYAukfpRYetCGRfk4ZgJj1whEVAW8IIHbSoe4eHKSTSLRQd1aQb9wI3nTGeIvE8k8Yy3cPLsBH2jxGJE7Ly76GqU_mMWZwb2lCncwgXP2KldN5LzK4SZRKsILrzX7-Rzw3BsEw_m5YxrD8XkPFUlhsjGLLdmJCp_4pwPJB9xQfFvsZyXU=s0-d-e1-ft" style="cursor: pointer; outline: 0px;" tabindex="0" width="255" /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
What is the future?</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
With the increased pervasiveness of mobile computing. The expanding ways in which mobile devices can excahnge data. To mention a few; over cell connections, over internet connections, through low energy proximal connectivity i.e. blue tooth but also sound waves or LED signaling. In addition, mobile devices travel around with us and collect data all day long. It can be data about ourselves (privacy) or data about the places we work at or visit (physical security) or the places at which we gather (event security and intelligence).</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
It should be fairly obvious that the complexity of defense against this new expanded category of capabilities will be very hard without an approach that takes a different look at computer and software security in the future.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium; text-align: center;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEX_WXYIoS1kO_4OxL-5U42SQVZPDaZlgbdyiKhyphenhyphenMznziafLEDzeEiY6UILsdcF9l6ioVejNRecWaqZgOhaDWCchdYLx-19hyIWvsqgjLsonJGBN-K354LvOmXT1cUpfE90Ne6OGRWyA/s1600/DebicSpafford.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEX_WXYIoS1kO_4OxL-5U42SQVZPDaZlgbdyiKhyphenhyphenMznziafLEDzeEiY6UILsdcF9l6ioVejNRecWaqZgOhaDWCchdYLx-19hyIWvsqgjLsonJGBN-K354LvOmXT1cUpfE90Ne6OGRWyA/s400/DebicSpafford.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
With this new wave of growth of complexity and interconnectedness I am reminded of a thought by <a href="http://spaf.cerias.purdue.edu/narrate.html">Gene Spafford</a> (pic. above) who visited us a few weeks back. Without considering the whole picture and threat risk it is impossible to defend effectively from a threat in a complex system with many communication pathways.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"Secure web servers are the equivalent of heavy armored cars. The problem is, they are being used to transfer rolls of coins and checks written in crayon by people on park benches to merchants doing business in cardboard boxes from beneath highway bridges. Further, the roads are subject to random detours, anyone with a screwdriver can control the traffic lights, and there are no police."</i></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
Unfortunately in today's world we are still unable to completelly secure our servers, the economic damages keep growing and new ones are popping up in competitiveness and intelligence. Myself I am still on an identity theft alert program instituted at great cost by the company through which I had my health insurance plan. I still receive the post-theft status reports each month, as a grim reminder of the security reality. I am also reminded of my good friend a long time government and NASA employee who went to great strides to avoid using social networks to avoid her personal and social network data would not end in the wrong hands. We had a chat about a month ago and she reminded me of her efforts and how frustrating it was to leanr about this bit of news:</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<i>"The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said data stolen from its computer networks included Social Security numbers and other sensitive information on 21.5 million people who have undergone background checks for security clearances."</i> </div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
The Mobile World</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
We are doing a better job in many respects than decades ago, but there is still more to be done, and more paradigms to be shifted or broken. The mobile computing ecosystem is only adding to the already complex reality and it will be imperative in the coming years to understand fully its consequences on the security landscape. And while leaders are thinking in new more adaptable ways about computer security <a href="http://www.ussecurityassociates.com/usa-services/consulting-investigations/documents/reframing-the%20issue-new-ways-to-think-about-cyber-risk-and-security.pdf" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">today</a>. It is still true, as it was back in 1996, that a new paradigm brings its own new qualities which have to be understood in order to properly build defenses - and it seems inevitable - offenses for its age. The major qualities brought by mobility in computing have already been mentioned but few which are novel and not seen in prior times are; </div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<ul>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">the ability to take massive ammounts of data and computing power nibly across locations and geographies, </li>
<li style="margin-left: 15px;">and the ability to pop in and out of established or ad-hoc networks and meshes at any time. </li>
</ul>
</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
These are probably the most interesting aspects of ubiquitous mobile computing that need to be researched from a security perspective, and they are being researched from other economic perspectives already. There are also significant differences in how different mobile leaders implement security paradigms on their platforms depending on whether they have the advantage of full control of their hardware and software platform or they are building a platofrm relying on open source and not targeting specific hardware. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses. </div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
Hopefully the time gap between mobile's economic significance and proper security will be less delayed than in the previous paradigm shift - when the Internet changed profoundly computer security in the late 90's.</div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="font-size: medium;">
<br /></div>
<div style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpb9DTrOg_7_sDtyMxMOKZUNNUsLsOFBGO4i-O9j4mbuYxpHGVgZU9JbgVROfASwmcY1W786YOc0iCYaI2aF4UkAx3ZbadmRGVFAf1VUfOXpI_A1hKTmLIXKHHgFFXjWfReQlM9lF3Yg/s1600/Screenshot+2015-12-05+at+5.52.52+PM.png" style="color: #1155cc; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" class="CToWUd" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpb9DTrOg_7_sDtyMxMOKZUNNUsLsOFBGO4i-O9j4mbuYxpHGVgZU9JbgVROfASwmcY1W786YOc0iCYaI2aF4UkAx3ZbadmRGVFAf1VUfOXpI_A1hKTmLIXKHHgFFXjWfReQlM9lF3Yg/s400/Screenshot+2015-12-05+at+5.52.52+PM.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="clear: both; font-size: medium; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="clear: both; font-size: medium;">
Boris Debic.</div>
<div style="clear: both; font-size: medium;">
12/5/2015.</div>
<div style="clear: both; font-size: medium;">
San Mateo, CA.</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-37602454779428418692013-05-09T18:53:00.003-07:002013-05-09T18:55:46.477-07:00What's in a month? (As far as email goes).<span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Just in the past month @Google.(4/13-5/13/2013). And that's a bit lower than usual as I took a one day vacation and was two days on an offsite and a week in NYC (note the flatter second week on the sent side). Information overload?</span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5-tfJVMkDcEV4Ms54MqNPed1P4K3nQGpqX-sgBBQofSj5x_oO5uj5dTAK3WkLRprr4Z8LuiCujjX6m3lgCXyC962zPxQ264euo7EZxIof42mx0aNqMXKDnswkuIqjTQHweHljqtsDw/s1600/GmailUse.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="113" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEia5-tfJVMkDcEV4Ms54MqNPed1P4K3nQGpqX-sgBBQofSj5x_oO5uj5dTAK3WkLRprr4Z8LuiCujjX6m3lgCXyC962zPxQ264euo7EZxIof42mx0aNqMXKDnswkuIqjTQHweHljqtsDw/s320/GmailUse.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The good news is we have great internal systems that help us cope with information. So in actuality this doesn't feel much more different than my private Gmail account which sees only moderate usage (now that I have moved many of the conversations to G+).</span></span><br />
<div>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-23945669746715686662013-05-05T18:47:00.001-07:002013-05-05T18:51:53.423-07:00Flektoprime One Live on YouTubeA combination of video and textual blogging? I completed setting up the Flektoprime Channel on YouTube while at the same time testing the integration with the new redesign of YouTube One Channel UI changes. This thus far worked extremelly well. The visual appearance on different devices is consistent and the design ismuch better than before. Kudos on this one to the Kennedy team (the internal code name for Google's new generation UX).<br />
<br />
I am going to creat a new tag on this blog for video related material. I may expand sometimes details in a blog post rather than in the video comments section. At least until the two converge a bit more.<br />
<br />
Stay tuned to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/debicbb">Flektoprime One</a>.<br />
<br />
FAQ.<br />
<br />
Q: Why Flektoprime One?<br />
<br />
A: The main - prime lens - on the D7 I mostly use for video these days is based on the Karl Zeiss Jena design called a Flektogon. A breakthrough lens in many ways.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvVCiS85PjrBRqZ2q8PUMVCPaZuz-2AqF0udUr5D_hMbw0vYpKcvKZVZX6mWi4Tb0F8NV4p3ybunRqvyAKAhTXih6whz_1j6k8rnpp4Ora5aHflmZu60GE3QjaTTmluvJ8U3fGFek38Q/s1600/ChannelPost.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="337" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvVCiS85PjrBRqZ2q8PUMVCPaZuz-2AqF0udUr5D_hMbw0vYpKcvKZVZX6mWi4Tb0F8NV4p3ybunRqvyAKAhTXih6whz_1j6k8rnpp4Ora5aHflmZu60GE3QjaTTmluvJ8U3fGFek38Q/s400/ChannelPost.tiff" width="400" /></a></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-4463870139586516262013-05-03T23:21:00.002-07:002013-05-04T13:34:37.854-07:00Today Was a Good Day for Surgery<br />
I have this beautiful great sounding Kurzweil K2600X. Loaded with all the extra ROMs available; Orchestral, Contemporary, Triple strike piano, Vintage keyboards. Its a great instrument and its been part of our family for a long time now.<br />
<br />
Here's Filip at the time not quite 4 yet, composing on the imposing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jssBqOpfsts">machine</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YTQWAJ4hr1Y/UYSpmEVRkjI/AAAAAAAAY3E/I0tKudYIQMY/w1024-h683/img_0765.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-YTQWAJ4hr1Y/UYSpmEVRkjI/AAAAAAAAY3E/I0tKudYIQMY/w1024-h683/img_0765.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Well a couple of months ago I spotted on eBay a SCSI memory card interface which fits the Kurzweil. I bought it a couple of weeks ago and decided that today was a good day to perform the surgery. Out with the 1.44 Mb floppy and in with the CF reader and an 8 Gb CF card. The card is partitoned into 4 x 2 Gb partitions. Two of them are loaded with samples, programs and setups. Expanding even more the machine's already impressive sound producing capabilities.<br />
<br />
A photo album illustrates part of the <a href="http://debic.net/fotke/k2600x/">process</a>.<br />
<br />
Dr. Kurzweil recently joined Google, where he is working on <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthof/2013/04/29/interview-how-ray-kurzweil-plans-to-revolutionize-search-at-google/">transforming search</a>. His latest book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Create-Mind-Thought-Revealed/dp/0670025291/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367699629&sr=8-1&keywords=how+to+create+a+mind">How to Create a Mind</a> is a very insightful work. I recommend reading it if you have an interest in how some of brains' parts work and how this may translate into intelligent machines. For a preview of what the book is about, watch this Authors@Google talk which we organized last year. It is a good <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zihTWh5i2C4">introduction</a> to the material in the book. So while Ray is building the new Googlecortex I had plenty of fun today turning inside out one of his older babies. A good day for surgery indeed.<br />
<br />
And also I am pretty sure when machines become the new overlords the following plate may come in handy. I was friendly to them from the start ;-)<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kUy0ZiN3LdA/UYSm6C1q5_I/AAAAAAAAY20/GoOpJd7xHOI/w1119-h839/IMG_20121122_132943.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kUy0ZiN3LdA/UYSm6C1q5_I/AAAAAAAAY20/GoOpJd7xHOI/w1119-h839/IMG_20121122_132943.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-41287657945605496322011-05-20T14:12:00.000-07:002011-05-20T14:31:28.654-07:00Kids and Science - Yesterday and Today<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAbrvywDkmj2tHKPIPqVsQKnOKuPq-ibfwM458uf3vgPZMq-WzDiVvAgtZqSSpeTKcN2Qbxqx9i1IPWq-jHbTdBl-d8TFG0ScaAud6A1Ayr0eEniflcxbNPRoTIB75AZO6wLrK4m2azQ/s1600/GilbertAtomicOpentrimmed.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 196px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgAbrvywDkmj2tHKPIPqVsQKnOKuPq-ibfwM458uf3vgPZMq-WzDiVvAgtZqSSpeTKcN2Qbxqx9i1IPWq-jHbTdBl-d8TFG0ScaAud6A1Ayr0eEniflcxbNPRoTIB75AZO6wLrK4m2azQ/s200/GilbertAtomicOpentrimmed.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608909450870524466" /></a><br /><br /><br />Ok, so everyone talks about how more kids need to take more science and engineering disciplines. Indeed I agree. It must have been the shift from science and engineering to into legal careers that somehow caused the following shift. <br /><br />Above is one example from the 50's, an atomic energy lab! Below, a chemistry set from the 40's.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQftMuh46aiBeAHw7mFYIqHWd_XbJMK1si6tvP6mlKCN_6TYQTB2YhITNm-jAWR0IMuJIEWCOXMfJb-hQQri6DNiw_BXw9v2pWxTIlA_Qab1rbhlvp7fGTUhAD77AYbHHE5PGKW1EAfg/s1600/1940s_Gilbert_chemistry_set_04.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQftMuh46aiBeAHw7mFYIqHWd_XbJMK1si6tvP6mlKCN_6TYQTB2YhITNm-jAWR0IMuJIEWCOXMfJb-hQQri6DNiw_BXw9v2pWxTIlA_Qab1rbhlvp7fGTUhAD77AYbHHE5PGKW1EAfg/s200/1940s_Gilbert_chemistry_set_04.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608910738046638066" /></a><br /><br />Times have changed, today's sets are an OLPC laptop and Python, a bunch of 74xx logic and 555 timers, or perhaps a LEGO robotics set. But still, for a future scientist trying some hands on chemistry and nuclear science on their own is not a such a bad idea. However, with all the litigation out there, this it came to the chemistry set below. Perhaps its time to add liability waivers to some of the toys - or better call them science education tools.<br /><br />I'll prop Martin's site here, he's a former colleague and principal toy master at <a href="http://scitoys.com">sci toys</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRD-KHassp_TZtQTkDkvmdYcak0BG6mry8fx8f3Fvi5barFKwaAC9DgMzvEQYZdJ00yn-eYJyqSb2XFoxfLRcDW_JMfW-6Yo8bbhmJ1Fk8XsPIaOaG-7UiLS-lR3eODFpoeoVgsG1Cdw/s1600/chemistry-kit-1024x799.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 156px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRD-KHassp_TZtQTkDkvmdYcak0BG6mry8fx8f3Fvi5barFKwaAC9DgMzvEQYZdJ00yn-eYJyqSb2XFoxfLRcDW_JMfW-6Yo8bbhmJ1Fk8XsPIaOaG-7UiLS-lR3eODFpoeoVgsG1Cdw/s200/chemistry-kit-1024x799.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5608912537564032674" /></a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-88672047735141856592011-05-14T09:12:00.000-07:002011-05-14T09:28:56.575-07:003000 lumens, that's a lot of photons<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLwb2d5HDUIHZNdxNAzl6tmV9A8rYVMmfYmGLyyM_A71P11OHEPXG9hcJB9BC1iuswMCpGpzm_lx1qFCkfPN7aDKufsYAFdMf5iVEWtFSssC60W34MDnwnE5CRFQSYBXOvknBZZkHAw/s1600/3000lumens.JPG"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhaLwb2d5HDUIHZNdxNAzl6tmV9A8rYVMmfYmGLyyM_A71P11OHEPXG9hcJB9BC1iuswMCpGpzm_lx1qFCkfPN7aDKufsYAFdMf5iVEWtFSssC60W34MDnwnE5CRFQSYBXOvknBZZkHAw/s200/3000lumens.JPG" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5606609627976179714" /></a><br />Waiting for darkness to set to test the new torch. It draws 2.8 amps from the Lithium batteries. Perfect for night <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=Kornati&aq&sll=43.874881%2C15.247993&sspn=0.042568%2C0.111494&ie=UTF8&t=h&rq=1&ev=zi&split=1&radius=3.33&hq=Kornati&hnear&ll=43.869559%2C15.238209&spn=0.042571%2C0.111494&z=14">navigation in tight quarters</a>.<br /><br />"The LEDs are being driven direct drive, from 14.4v, using four 18650 batteries. The brightness is fairly constant until the batteries are fully discharged. This flashlight does get very warm, but not so hot you cannot hold it. The head is massive, and the body is also massive, being 1/4" thick (.75 ID, 1.25" OD). Both the head and body are integral part of the heat sinking, and also your hand (if ungloved)."<br /><br />"On max power, it is almost too bright to be usable!"<br /><br />I have it on max power, the only way to use it at home is to bounce it off the ceiling at which point it lights the whole room in very bright light (mine is 20 ft., regular ones could work but don't look at the ceiling). Its real use is for the outside, I did tests last night after warning neighbors that its not an alien landing. Its perfect for the outdoors. I'll mod the torch so I have an outside power toggle, the jumper inside the head is less than ideal for a field situation.<br /><br />"So how long can they run and what is the Voltage for us Americans?"<br /><br />This is a hand held flashlight: <a href="http://elektrolumens.com/FireSword-V/FireSword-V.html">http://elektrolumens.com/FireSword-V/FireSword-V.html</a><br />Runs on 4 rechargeable Lithium ion cells. It'll work for an hour on the high power setting, or 3 hours on the 1000 lumen setting.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-57549307370371987562011-02-22T18:53:00.000-08:002011-02-22T19:09:45.323-08:00National Engineers WeekHere's a piece for the week from some of my colleagues...<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">My favorite thing about being an engineer is...</span><br />always thinking about how to make things better<br />improving people's lives<br />beautifully coded useful applications<br />The ability to build things that affect the lives of millions<br />being able to problem-solve all day long<br />creating useful things<br />the pay<br />Building things and the joy of seeing them work.<br />The 'aha!' moments of understanding when I discover how an elaborate software architecture works, its parts and their interactions. The opportunity to unbreak things, repurpose, tweak and construct new ones; especially when they are useful to *other* people too, and they make a difference in their lives.<br />Creating things but also breaking things in spectacular ways.<br />taking apart things, understanding how things work, fixing things, building machines that help people<br />Solving problems to make the world a better place<br />making things out of thought-stuff<br />the feeling when stuff actually works. <br />doing something I would be doing for free while being paid for it :-)<br />constant tinkering and discovery<br />They give me all of these wonder toys AND they pay me to play with them! (I work on mobile development)<br />I get to build things that help people<br />Taking stuff apart and making something new from the pieces.<br />Making things that other people can use<br />creating new things<br />working with other engineers<br />putting power in the hands of the people<br />using my problem solving skills in my everyday life.<br />Making things work.<br />discovering elegant solutions to difficult problems<br />being able to create beautiful things.<br />Building stuff!<br />Designing and making things that are useful to people<br />solving problems<br />building things that people will use.<br />I get to work with smart people.<br />Building things that did not exist before<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">I first knew I was an engineer when...</span><br />I stayed up all night playing video games<br />i enjoyed learning calculus<br />i made a game<br />I played with legos as a child<br />I fell in love with Capsela<br />I got my first computer at age 4<br />i figured out how to decode paper tape by hand, to learn how a computer game was written<br />I loved working on the computer and building computer games.<br />I started taking things apart to see what's inside. My father's alarm clock was the first 'convenient victim'.<br />My parents knew it when as a kid I took apart an expensive watch which did not belong to me...<br />When people started referring to me as one<br />I connected a battery to light up a bulb, must have been in 6th grade<br />I took apart my remote-controlled car as a kid<br />I realised I loved making software<br />I nearly killed myself with 230v<br />I decided to exchange my precious collection of Marvel Hero magazines by an electronic kit still at middle school.<br />I was 8 years old and got a TI-99 4A<br />I built a dollhouse out of legos<br />I made my first LED blink. It was red.<br />I started coding at age 10<br />I was able to solve problems others weren't<br />i spent a lot of time programming a calculator<br />I had to know how everything worked.<br />I realized I'd read the 18 volume "how it works" encyclopedia from cover to cover.<br />I took apart my first hard drive with my father<br />I saw a video game and wondered how they drew 3D like that.<br />I took apart a digital scale to see how it worked.<br />I decided I liked concrete coding more than abstract math<br />I realized I liked computer programming better than physics.<br />The first person who has never heard of me played around with something I built<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">You might be an engineer if...</span><br />you are constantly trying to fix things<br />you like math and you like building things<br />are engaged with computers<br />You have a strong, quantitative mind, attention to detail, and a knack for understanding how machines work and why<br />you love putting science and math into use in the real world<br />you think pi is more interesting than pie<br />you'd rather sit and do puzzles than play sports<br />Love tinkering with things and have an urge to automate things.<br />You feel the need to trace, document, understand 'stuff' and are driven by the imperative to talk to other engineers about it<br />If you look at a theatre or concert stage and a good fraction of the time you look where the lights are, and what patterns are used to light the set. <br />You can manage to follow instructions and follow some basic rules.<br />you like to build things<br />you are driven to take things apart or figure out how they work<br />you love mathematical/algorithmic problem solving<br />"how does it work" is more than a rap line. <br />you are passionate about turning ideas for gadget, devices or softwares into something that can transform peoples lives and you don't stop when you find a technical obstacle.<br />you're counting physical things and get to 'A'<br />you like to build things to help people<br />You are not satisfied with thinking of technology as magic.<br />You take things apart (and put them back together)!<br />computer code makes you smile<br />you enjoy taking things apart<br />if you like solving problems<br />The first thing you want to do with a new toy is rip off the cover and see what makes it go.<br />you enjoy figuring out the details of how things work<br />you like make things work by putting things together.<br />You like to understand how things work.<br />You're fascinated by how things work<br />you find puzzles fun<br />you enjoy puzzle solving.<br />You also have "engineer" in your job title? I'm not sure I understand the question.<br />You like seeing things tick together <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">This video/image shows what I like most about engineering (insert link)...</span><br /><br />Images:<br /><a href="http://omega-onsite.com/plugs.jpg">http://omega-onsite.com/plugs.jpg</a><br /><a href="http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/3/b0/4c3657b81e770/detail.jpg">http://i.annihil.us/u/prod/marvel/i/mg/3/b0/4c3657b81e770/detail.jpg</a><br /><a href="http://toki-woki.net/blog/p2242-hey-lego-table">http://toki-woki.net/blog/p2242-hey-lego-table</a><br /><a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/boris.debic/Xmass2010#5555641303209867522">https://picasaweb.google.com/boris.debic/Xmass2010#5555641303209867522</a><br /><a href="http://xkcd.com/303/">http://xkcd.com/303/</a><br /><a href="http://www.impactlab.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/google-switzerland-1.jpg">http://www.impactlab.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/google-switzerland-1.jpg</a><br /><a href="http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/docs/thermite_demo_s.jpg">http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/thermite/docs/thermite_demo_s.jpg</a><br /><a href="http://www.gwb3.com/GWBIII/Blog/Entries/2009/5/24_Are_you_smarter_than_a_Freshman_files/2%3D1.jpg">http://www.gwb3.com/GWBIII/Blog/Entries/2009/5/24_Are_you_smarter_than_a_Freshman_files/2%3D1.jpg</a> <br /><a href="http://scientificproofmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/picture-4.png">http://scientificproofmagazine.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/picture-4.png</a><br />[the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows bridge]<br /><br />Videos<br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL2Gf1qDfBs">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tL2Gf1qDfBs</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOtoujYOWw0">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOtoujYOWw0</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw8WRBq1Qxw">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw8WRBq1Qxw</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pM6uD8nePo">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pM6uD8nePo</a><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs_5EVH8O0o">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qs_5EVH8O0o</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-56203078293911903532011-01-20T11:59:00.000-08:002011-01-20T12:28:12.356-08:00CA DMV Driver LicensesSo I checked today with the DMV Press office on the driver license <a href="http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local-beat/Production-Problems-Delay-New-California-Drivers-Licenses-113039309.html?dr">production delays</a>.<br /><br />If you have a paper license, and are still waiting on the the plastic card. The safe thing to do is to go to the DMV and get a new paper document. Obviously this has the potential to create more problems at the DMV as people out of the queue reenter it. The DMV press contact did add one more thing. Police departments are telling their officers to be elastic on the paper documents for another month. You should check with the Police in your area wether they are doing so.<br /><br />===<br /><br />And I just called my local police department. And the officer there checked the database. The DMV actually did update the records, and their systems show the new expiration date. The officer said, to keep the expired paper extension nevertheless but as far as they are concerned - they have good data.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-37058583758630447842011-01-05T19:19:00.000-08:002011-01-05T20:49:09.348-08:00Eleven Days Cruising the US SouthwestSo here we are back home after <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/boris.debic/Xmass2010#">11 days on the road</a>. When I say on the road I mean 5546.4 kilometers or 3 446.4 miles of road. This travel started with an early abort. Last year we went to Kauai, and this I have reserved a flight to Cancun, Mexico. Then the TSA started with more through pat down and scanner schemes. In protest to the potential harassment I called off the reservations and we agreed to take the travel car out for a spin of the southwest and divert the airfare ransom into gas on our own and the nicest hotels we could find. Our daughter wanted to play in snow anyway. We've been to New Mexico before but missed many spots in a different kind of tour. It was time to give New Mexico the time it deserves. Myself, I wanted to see a couple of 'rocket science' things there, including the notorious place called Roswell :) I am happy to report all objectives of this mission were accomplished, including finding the alien - to Filip's horror. The pictures linked above tell the story of the journey. As Seneca said, "Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind."<br /><br />Here's a few engineering notes. It took 628 liters (166 gallons) of gasoline to complete the trip. About 22 Tera Joules of energy, enough to power a color TV 24x7 for 17 years, lifting a million apples to a height of 1000 meters, or typing 4.3 million 100,000 word novels on a typewriter. On the green side we emitted 1.47 tons of CO2, but I am sleeping well, as I can offset this by planting 14 trees next summer in our family's forest back in Croatia - feel free to ask me about the tree planting party.<br /><br />We have seen scenes and places, colors, skies, snow blizzards and primeval rock, lava, mesas and sand in abundance. But we have also seen the work of humans. Ancient and contemporary, constructive and destructive, the modern space oriented, the contemporary art, and the old, symbolic and quizzing. The flash of Vegas and the erie remoteness of the Jornada del Muerto. The spicy food of New Mexico the Americana fare on route 66. Most of all, we filled our neurons with new memories that will not fade easily.<br /><br />Enjoy.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-48970822479670616032010-10-28T17:55:00.000-07:002010-10-28T18:23:25.639-07:00Neal Stephenson - Snow CrashSo after reading Cryptonomicon and Anathem I finally found the time to read Snow Crash. Out of order, but hey, better than never. Neal's writing is rich, full of surprises. The prism he uses to look at the world is intricate and well polished, playing with humor and always cutting through our times. Here's a taste of it.<br /><br />"Since then, he's been putting a lot more emphasis on his auxiliary emergency backup job: freelance stringer for the CIC, the Central Intelligence Corporation of Langley, Virginia.<br /><br />The business is a simple one. Hiro gets information. It may be gossip, videotape, audiotape, a fragment of a computer disk, a xerox of a document. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster.<br /><br />He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means.<br /><br />And even the word "library" is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old ones. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeroes. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering."Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-2763467726520514932010-06-09T23:53:00.000-07:002010-06-10T17:03:02.982-07:00Pixel OverlordHome Page Overload. Wednesday, June 9th, 2010. An instant centithread has emerged on eng-misc following the radical insurgent change of our home page.<br /><br />"Oh, wow. That's hideous."<br />"The tech blogs are going to lose their sh*t over this, but the regular users are going to love it."<br />"I don't like it."<br />"Shut up, nerd!"<br />"It kind of feels like the 90s called, and they want their website back."<br />"WTF?"<br /><br />New Coke didn't last long, this won't either...<br /><br />Update: Indeed <a href="http://search.slashdot.org/story/10/06/10/1933214/Google-Introduces-Then-Scraps-Bing-Style-Background-Images?art_pos=7">gone fast</a>... phew... good ridance.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-16874466162120729942009-03-11T10:28:00.000-07:002009-03-11T14:35:56.455-07:00Behind the Scenes - Production PushesAnd another busy morning coordinating with engineers and product marketing folks who are anxious to see their feature live. Is it done? Is it done yet? Its the end of a long process for many of the people involved, months of planning and designing, weeks of coding and testing back and forth. And then an hour or so to see it become live in front of many users. People often ask, what exactly do release engineers do. The short answer is, we help make software development an engineering grade industrial strength activity. In all aspects of it, from the design and planning through the execution and finally in days like this pushing all the right switches to make things come to life in front of an audience in a smooth way. Without interruption. Without downtime.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHrlBrtf1W_rtToL2pbemby4Ifb5t80yPwQjbuarpI3LmbRRQwRTaNLuNqYJ7yLbCy5sy5OTEnFYMSjB_JrH8-5AH4gWgFcyHwpeNL1BKes5AazdYqXWVBLdoi9aL_2t9gJuLhbn9ppQ/s1600-h/prodpush.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 86px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHrlBrtf1W_rtToL2pbemby4Ifb5t80yPwQjbuarpI3LmbRRQwRTaNLuNqYJ7yLbCy5sy5OTEnFYMSjB_JrH8-5AH4gWgFcyHwpeNL1BKes5AazdYqXWVBLdoi9aL_2t9gJuLhbn9ppQ/s320/prodpush.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312003498980060002" /></a><br /><br />Today's push - AdSense UI for interest-based advertising. This is a feature which is covered with wide interest and, as I flip the bits, has already received coverage in The New York Times and other news organizations. Here in short;<br /><br />"Google will begin showing ads on Wednesday to people based on their previous online activities in a form of advertising known as behavioral targeting, which has been embraced by most of its competitors but has drawn criticism from privacy advocates and some members of Congress. <br /><br />Perhaps to forestall objections to its approach, Google said it planned to offer new ways for users to protect their privacy. Most notably, Google will be the first major company to give users the ability to see and edit the information that it has compiled about their interests for the purposes of behavioral targeting. Like rivals such as Yahoo, it also will give users the choice to opt out from what it calls “interest-based advertising.”<br /><br />Privacy advocates praised Google’s decision to give users access to their profiles.<br /><br />Given Google’s position as the No. 1 seller of online ads, its approach is likely to put pressure on other companies to follow suit. Online advertising industry groups said it might help quell calls for government regulation." -- NYT 3/11/08<br /><br />And so while the public debate about the feature only starts, the production push on my side is almost complete. The production push process of this feature actually started about a week ago when I first released the new binaries which had the functionality built in - but not yet turned on. We then spent some time running and poking it on internal systems making sure everything was working properly and all elements were in place. Yesterday I received the final go from Sam as an open issue #1608551, I have approved code change #10431732 which Sam checked in shortly thereafter. We agreed with Robby on the timing - 9 AM PST. Today's part was to essentially flip one bit on all the user facing servers turning feature based advertising on for the first time on live user facing servers. <br /><br />This is now done and thus far humming happily in production land. The issue is closed and for myself its back to regular programming and working with my colleagues on the next challenge. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/technology/internet/11google.html?_r=3&ref=technology">NYT Article</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-12290208759052274562009-02-04T20:05:00.000-08:002009-03-11T14:37:00.275-07:00The Man From MarsI was looking around our image search site following a launch. Looking for things related to planet Mars, space exploration and the Space Shuttle. But then I stumbled onto this - "The Man From Mars".<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsF2WbXKAu2OT04OA0OHTzaN6TW7XykLwMG6JWT2tTlznNLp1jinUOUgRXpa_VXL79A7UuOtyKHoedbMy9QtolQpjFkg6z2ldvCOT0i9G12aX7AmmrwFU9HPyxjD0wGwqm3jqcs1xrRA/s1600-h/ManFromMars.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsF2WbXKAu2OT04OA0OHTzaN6TW7XykLwMG6JWT2tTlznNLp1jinUOUgRXpa_VXL79A7UuOtyKHoedbMy9QtolQpjFkg6z2ldvCOT0i9G12aX7AmmrwFU9HPyxjD0wGwqm3jqcs1xrRA/s320/ManFromMars.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5299161259689342834" /></a><br /><br />Click <a href="http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=man+frommars+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dman%2Bfrommars%2Bsource:life%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG&imgurl=5d4e4b4f543c2eeb">here</a> for a high res version of the above Martian. The source <a href="http://images.google.com/hosted/life/l?q=man+frommars+source:life&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dman%2Bfrommars%2Bsource:life%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG&imgurl=5d4e4b4f543c2eeb">Life Magazine, 1951</a> has more shots with high resolution detail. Has anyone a clue what's going on here?! Go figure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-62013896364997190922008-09-16T18:46:00.000-07:002008-09-17T00:31:50.886-07:00SpaceX at Google's Zeitgeist 2008A capsule from SpaceX appeared at the Googleplex today. Here's a couple of pictures. Rumor has it that SpaceX founder Elon Musk will show up at Zeitgeist and talk about private initiative and space exploration. Given the company boasts the world's lowest cost flight to orbit he'll likely receive some attention from the audience. The capsule on these pictures is codenamed Dragon. At first glance the hatch hinges and rubber rings seem a bit weak, but this being a prototype, I am sure it'll change eventually. Here are some of the highlights of the capsule:<br /><ul><li>Fully autonomous rendezvous and docking with manual override capability in crewed configuration </li><li>Pressurized Cargo/Crew capacity of >2500 kg and 14 cubic meters </li><li>Down-cargo capability (equal to up-cargo) </li><li>Supports up to 7 passengers in Crew configuration </li><li>Two-fault tolerant avionics system with extensive heritage </li><li>Reaction control system with 18 MMH/NTO thrusters designed and built in-house; these thrusters are used for both attitude control and orbital maneuvering </li><li>1200 kg of propellant supports a safe mission profile from sub-orbital insertion to ISS rendezvous to reentry</li><li>Integral common berthing mechanism, with LIDS or APAS support if required </li><li>Designed for water landing under parachute for ocean recovery </li><li>Lifting re-entry for landing precision & low-g’s </li><li>Ablative, high-performance heat shield and sidewall thermal protection </li></ul>The current plan calls for a full long-duration system check-out in 2009. Dragon will perform approach, rendezvous, and breakaway operations with the Falcon 9 upper stage simulating an Interantional Space Station rendezvous.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMSwlLYs6Njfe3cJMH7LAGhqevzXKaGpsoSqdbup8ZDbxpL2NwqXNmyk4uDbDjVmsSkkGvtfN4xLLGByXKIf7P0QQdy1_7J4rvRM_5Xp6v99TDtCKHalegAxB_2o_fiHrdkQM_3k2sg/s1600-h/IMG00075.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaMSwlLYs6Njfe3cJMH7LAGhqevzXKaGpsoSqdbup8ZDbxpL2NwqXNmyk4uDbDjVmsSkkGvtfN4xLLGByXKIf7P0QQdy1_7J4rvRM_5Xp6v99TDtCKHalegAxB_2o_fiHrdkQM_3k2sg/s320/IMG00075.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246840790086188514" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLQDzqd-xOtj8tUPNQ5At5CtbjKWV-gTu-S5a3krF8AzjsU8Wy8PWYsNX3HbO18aKixW_ziC8bPF2SuqtSO8EAb-zIqy7GAm4NPdkRbCaaAC35rTosBSG1yvDxUFLL738g7x1Akk2g_g/s1600-h/IMG00078.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLQDzqd-xOtj8tUPNQ5At5CtbjKWV-gTu-S5a3krF8AzjsU8Wy8PWYsNX3HbO18aKixW_ziC8bPF2SuqtSO8EAb-zIqy7GAm4NPdkRbCaaAC35rTosBSG1yvDxUFLL738g7x1Akk2g_g/s320/IMG00078.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246840794988380146" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxB-BQ2aJVCVLPDhmTl5o7EMNk_z2aZwcEIu9CgH4ruG0hM3cY0giPuw3aGE81s8DagKKfVKEnfslOdpVcb_dGAFBibwceOglDh889SfKqeBdu1DIBXOfJJ6hyphenhyphennN47Zcy1CT1ZXJ83eA/s1600-h/IMG00076.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxB-BQ2aJVCVLPDhmTl5o7EMNk_z2aZwcEIu9CgH4ruG0hM3cY0giPuw3aGE81s8DagKKfVKEnfslOdpVcb_dGAFBibwceOglDh889SfKqeBdu1DIBXOfJJ6hyphenhyphennN47Zcy1CT1ZXJ83eA/s320/IMG00076.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5246840800925096786" border="0" /></a><br />Further info on <a href="http://www.spacex.com/">http://www.spacex.com/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-26117863603695957512008-08-27T23:24:00.000-07:002008-08-27T23:38:51.034-07:00UbiquityA compelling way to interact with information available on the Internet was released yesterday by Mozilla developers - <a href="http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/">Ubiquity</a>. Removing clunkiness is laudable but more than that I hope this further steers developers into leaving the immediate interface issues and starts them on thinking structurally about the information they process or/and publish. I expect plenty of privacy and security concerns to arise soon. It's one thing to email ascii and its another to send rich markup over unencrypted links.<br /><br />http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-41657462234540371972008-08-27T21:28:00.000-07:002008-08-27T21:38:37.255-07:00Gmail on Mobile Clients Communication IssueIf you decide to switch your Gmail preferences to always use https for all connections to Google servers, do not forget to do the same on your mobile devices, with the mobile client. Note: Yes, you should be using https, its a bad idea to let attackers close to your cookies sent unencrypted over your sessions - any sessions - not just Google ones. For the time being things can get out of sync and your mobile client will get server errors when trying to access your account. Here's a read from the Gmail google group. I noticed this after my blackberry stopped sending emails, or performing searches on my Gmail account. After a fresh install it pretty much stopped doing anything.<br /><br />http://groups.google.com/group/google-mobile-help-blackberry/browse_thread/thread/d5f94637cbaf3837/5d00e5d1d54bd680?lnk=raotUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-34364691973680529112008-08-10T11:43:00.000-07:002008-08-10T11:52:59.214-07:00The Theory of BullshitI haven't read H.G. Frankfurter's book yet, but I find interesting his assertion that "we" (society?) have no theory of it yet. Stepping away from it's literal meaning, describing feces of a bull, bullshit describes a type of speech and statements correlated with incorrect, false, misleading or made up arguments. A common misperception is that such language is often used and needed in politics and advertising, it is however certainty that bullshit is not confined exclusively to any particular area of human activity.<br /><br />"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern. We have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, as Harry Frankfurt writes, "we have no theory."<br /><br />Indeed, I think there is a very valid point in trying to understand the nature and sociological value or cost of bullshit in society and its relation to politics in general and power in particular, as it seems lying at least requires acknowledgment of the truth, whereas producing bullshit seems immune to this constraint.<br /><br />"It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth. Producing bullshit requires no such conviction. A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it. When an honest man speaks, he says only what he believes to be true; and for the liar, it is correspondingly indispensable that he considers his statements to be false. For the bullshitter, however, all these bets are off: he is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all, as the eyes of the honest man and of the liar are, except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says. He does not care whether the things he says describe reality correctly. He just picks them out, or makes them up, to suit his purpose."<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://press.princeton.edu/releases/frankfurt475.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://press.princeton.edu/releases/frankfurt475.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/W1RO93OS0Sk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/W1RO93OS0Sk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-15213235111611865342008-03-13T20:47:00.000-07:002008-08-10T12:01:46.554-07:00God is not GreatGod Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/God_is_not_great.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 124px; height: 160px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/6b/God_is_not_great.JPG" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />This book has many reviews already, there's no point in trying to write one more. Hitchens brings vividly the inconsistencies in religious philosophy forward and he finds these in every major religion of contemporary times. Whereas some reviews compress his writing into a simplified label "radical atheist", his book is much more than so often seen scribblings by barely literate fundamentalists or even worse, in this day and time, the sending of messages by beheading people on poorly taped TV. The book brings facets of the interplay of society and religion, the long history of this relation and some of the sour fruits of it including those of religious power over society. The best word for the book is given by Mr. Hitchens himself, I had the privilege to attend Mr. Hitchen's talk at Google in Mountain View and I am happy we are able to share this talk with the public.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sD0B-X9LJjs&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sD0B-X9LJjs&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-15755654363776502302007-12-11T21:09:00.000-08:002010-11-20T15:24:54.923-08:00Mashing up and where do I workThe coming year promises to bring a new face to many web apps, mashing up content from different sources is becoming easier by the day. I am going to test some of these ideas on this blog and file it under Mashups. The idea behind mashups is simple leave the lifting to those who do it best, and concentrate on where you add value to the chain, be it your friends or your customers.<br />Here's an example, the Google Maps team just announced adding 8 new cities to the street view layer on http://www.google.com/maps. What's interesting to me is not the eight new cities but the ability to add the street view snippet into my own, in this case, blog post. So here, today I'll share the street where I work and point visiting friends to it. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Note</span> one little but important detail, to get the right html snippet you have to use the http://www.google.com/maps URL to navigate to the right place and not http://maps.google.com, this will change in the future but right now you have to be aware of it otherwise the html snippet will not work properly. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><iframe width="425" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.google.com/maps/sv?cbp=1,394.69390532162225,,0,0.3356171389107769&cbll=37.420965,-122.085489&panoid=CaBDSeIzcBv3AW27ZVwI4g&v=1&hl=en&gl=us"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=37.423131,-122.084305&spn=0.004754,0.009978&z=17&om=1&layer=c&cbll=37.420965,-122.085489&cbp=1,394.69390532162225,,0,0.3356171389107769&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small><br /></div><br /><br />But it may as well be the place in Berkeley where I buy music from time to time. <br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><iframe width="425" height="240" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://www.google.com/maps/sv?cbp=1,392.20390532162224,,1,1.4151899134540036&cbll=37.866739,-122.258739&panoid=5glRpGw5_1ozNF1WHSQM3Q&v=1&hl=en&gl=us"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://www.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&time=&date=&ttype=&q=Berkeley,+CA&layer=c&ie=UTF8&ll=37.881357,-122.276201&spn=0.0378,0.079823&z=14&iwloc=addr&om=1&cbll=37.866739,-122.258739&cbp=1,392.20390532162224,,1,1.4151899134540036&source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small><br /></div><br /><br />Here's a <a href="http://google-latlong.blogspot.com/2007/12/enjoy-holidays-with-new-street-view.html">page</a> which describes how to add street view imagery to web pages.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-39637528194090253702007-12-03T21:59:00.000-08:002007-12-03T22:33:12.545-08:00Why Web 2.0 and how I started to move off the serverI have to admit, being a computer hack for 25+ years I really love to meddle with software on my own. I have my own servers plugged to the Internet and I have ways and ways to make them useful to myself. It started way back in the Andresen days with pics my family could peek at and then it went more and more complex with more and more stuff running on them. <br /><br />But I am fed up now, the tipping point for me was wordpress. Not because it's a bad piece of software, I just grew tired of moderating a whole pile of comments whose content was just a pile of spam. I loved the geeky aspect of being able to grep through log files or setup cron jobs to move files between raid servers. However, at the end of the day. It's not cutting it. I spend too much time worrying over those details where I could be writing about a good book I read and how it changed my perspective (Steve thank you for the comment). I moved to blogger though anything similar will do. No more fuss and more time to do creative things. Let my colleagues who are scaling the infrastructure of the future take charge. It makes my day, and it makes my publishing effortless.<br /><br />Moreover, its not anymore just blogs, or pictures but documents, presentations, financial modeling, even credit card aggregation through mint.com. I thought of this service while at E.piphany seven years ago, it is finally available. My goal, cleanup all my servers, move everything to willing providers live with just a couple of laptops and phones and have the server without much content, perhaps ready for a quick experiment or two. <br /><br />This being said, it's not rosy. I hawk around mint and their security and privacy policies. I hawk around the company I work in to make sure the right thing is done for users. If you move things to Web 2.0. you ought to have a way to download YOUR property and archive it from time to time. Beyond that, you need to understand whether your provider has an effective way for you to terminate your commitment, i.e., erase all information you decide to remove. Today it looks a lot like reading the fine print of credit card agreements. I think this seriously ought to change. And this is just scratching the surface. <br /><br />It does at one point become a question of trust. And how this trust will evolve or devolve, will be part of my posts here.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4602271777038072406.post-30197644284511253922007-12-01T22:32:00.000-08:002010-11-20T15:28:02.155-08:00The Oil and the GloryThe Oil and the Glory: The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea by Steve LeVine.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh67pTdVW6NVyIaNtHI4hnN1_VMUAAaUFWeh-f6NREnysTrZdLijGwbJzRLya_0G7zzVOmy16inVry2v59rAyuLJSUupuT7hEvP5KOtY0N4OLBaFX4qH13S_YHyfWWPKoZeC-MxY5atWcNm/s200/the+oil+and+glory.jpg" alt="the+oil+and+glory.jpg (200×200)" /></div><br /><br />Steve LeVine covered Central Asia and the Caucasus for The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times for 11 years — starting two weeks after the Soviet collapse through 2003. From 1988-1991, LeVine was Newsweek's Pakistan-based correspondent for that country and Afghanistan. While the book doesn't have the documented rigor of say Taubman's biography on Khruschev it is quite clear that Steve knows very well the region; central Asia, the Caucasus and Russia. Moreover the book is vivid in both historical detail and the well rounded detail on the cast of players. It's importance is not only in shedding light the light on the region it covers, but even more so into understanding the dynamics at play in some of world's most influential corporations. The book has a great balance of historical context and a detailed account of the power struggles around the oil in the Caspian basin. I will add in the coming days a post with some memorable quotes from the book, for the time being take a look at the video of a talk Steve LeVine gave us at Google. Thank you Steve, great book!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /><object height="373" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_RYBCssjhnc&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&border=1"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_RYBCssjhnc&rel=0&color1=0xd6d6d6&color2=0xf0f0f0&border=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="373" width="425"></embed></object><br /></div><br /><br />Steve keeps a <a href="http://oilandglory.com/">blog</a> on central Asia, Caucasus and Russia.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1