Author: Michael

Entrepreneurship: The art of the struggle

THESE are halcyon days in Silicon Valley and other hives of entrepreneurship around the world. Barely a week goes by without some newly minted billionaire hitting the headlines and some bizarrely named young company getting an eye-wateringly high valuation from financiers. But for every starry success there will be a multitude of failures, and it is easy to forget that the job of an entrepreneur is often nasty, brutish and in danger of being cut short by impatient investors, rebellious co-founders and other hazards.

via Entrepreneurship: The art of the struggle | The Economist.

My Thursday morning commute adventures mentioned on CBC

The icy conditions kept Michael Soltys on the roads in the morning for far longer than usual.

The McMaster University professor left his west Toronto home this morning at 7:30 a.m. and arrived at McMaster at 11 a.m. The commute usually takes him about an hour.

“Basically from Oakville to Hamilton there was a layer of ice on the road. “The cars were moving very slowly, bumper to bumper.” said Soltys.

“I was surprised. I had expected a little longer but not that long.”  When it came time for him to exit at Aberdeen road into Hamilton, Soltys said the ramp was blocked with cars. He had to drive around through Ancaster. The long commute caused Soltys to miss teaching his morning class.

via Icy, slow commute closed lanes on QEW Thursday morning – Latest Hamilton news – CBC Hamilton.

Texas school offers first-of-a-kind data center engineering degree

Plenty of people have engineering degrees but not many have one specific to data centers. A university in Dallas is offering what it says will be a first-of-its-kind graduate degree in data center engineering.

The program at Southern Methodist University includes five core courses covering data centers broadly, then draws on various departments so that students can specialize in areas like facilities and infrastructure, data analytics, virtualization and cloud computing.

via Texas school offers first-of-a-kind data center engineering degree – Computerworld.

Computer science enrollments rocketed last year, up 22%

A sneak peek at the annual Computing Research Association’s CRA report on computer science enrollments at colleges shows that strong demand for technically-savvy workers is luring students in a big way.

via Computer science enrollments rocketed last year, up 22% – Network World.

NIST seeks to bring rigor to data science

The U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) wants to bring some metrics and rigor to the nascent but rapidly growing field of data science.

The government agency is embarking on a project to develop by 2016 a framework that can be used by all industries to understand how to use, and measure the results from data science, and big data projects.

via NIST seeks to bring rigor to data science – Network World.

As the Web Turns 25, Its Creator Talks About Its Future

In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, a software engineer, sat in his small office at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research near Geneva and started work on a new system called the World Wide Web.On Wednesday, that project, now simply called the web, will celebrate its 25th anniversary, and Mr. Berners-Lee is looking ahead at the next 25.

via As the Web Turns 25, Its Creator Talks About Its Future – NYTimes.com.

What doxxing is, and why it matters

The term “dox” also spelt “doxx”, and short for “[dropping] documents” first came into vogue as a verb around a decade ago, referring to malicious hackers’ habit of collecting personal and private information, including home addresses and national identity numbers. The data are often released publicly against a person’s wishes. It is a practice frowned upon by users of Reddit, a popular online forum, and many others.

via The Economist explains: What doxxing is, and why it matters | The Economist.