SpaceX ++

SpaceX rocket lifts off on first commercial satellite launch | Reuters:

The global satellite industry overall had revenues of nearly $190 billion in 2012, including nearly $90 billion in television services alone

Udacity: Data Science & Big Data Track (Free vs. Full)

Udacity Blog: Sebastian Thrun: Launching our Data Science & Big Data Track built with Leading Industry Partners:

• Mobile Website Development and Design Course - Udacity
  
• Introduction to Salesforce App Development - Udacity
  
• Introduction to Hadoop and MapReduce - Udacity
  
• Intro to Data Science - Udacity
  
• Data Wrangling with MongoDB - Udacity
  
• Exploratory Data Analysis - Udacity

There is still "Free" and a now there are some "Full" courses.
Price: $150/month per class, to get coaching and other help.

Compared with standard corporate training and colleges / universities
that price seems to be a good deal. But compared with PluralSight,
where there is unlimited access to 1000+ professional quality classes
for $30-50/month, it is not a comparison.

Obviously, for PluralSight person needs to be self-motivated. Similarity is that both Udacity and PluralSight are venture-funded by about $20M+ so far... In a way Coursera is more similar to PluralSight, where one is driven by reputation, and other by money... O'Reilly SafariBooksOnline subscriptions also have videos, besides books.

But all those efforts are completely missing on content-contribution, there are no "Wikipedia-like" training systems (that I am aware of)... StackOverflow has questions and answers, and is a great resource, but not organized for systematic learning, for for ad-hock...

Lazy(T) Class

in .NET 4 and newer:

Lazy(T) Class (System):

// The lazy initializer is created here, not the LargeObject
lazyLargeObject = new Lazy<LargeObject>(() => new LargeObject());
// LargeObject is not created yet here...
LargeObject large = lazyLargeObject.Value;
large.Data // only now LargeObject gets initialized

Lazy Initialization of an object means that its creation is deferred until it is first used.

"Legitimacy of Authority" by Malcolm Gladwell

#45. A Summary of ‘David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants’ by Malcolm Gladwell | New Books in Brief:
As Gladwell explains, “when people in authority want the rest of us to behave, it matters—first and foremost—how they behave. This is called the ‘principle of legitimacy,’ and legitimacy is based on three things. 

• First of all, the people who are asked to obey authority have to feel like they have a voice—that if they speak up, they will be heard.
  
  
• Second, the law has to be predictable. There has to be a reasonable expectation that the rules tomorrow are going to be roughly the same as the rules today.
  
  
• And third, the authority has to be fair. It can’t treat one group differently from another”

Malcolm Gladwell: Speaking at Dominican University of California October 9, 2013 - YouTube  @ 26:50

China's 10-year plan "mono-culture"

China Chooses Change In Ten-Year Outlook | On Point with Tom Ashbrook:

There used to be 5-year communist plans... now it is 10-year plan for China.
It may be a good fit for a compliant culture...
Without details, it would sound better if called a 10-year "vision".

(A good thing is that China's politicians listen to engineers... :)

From history, and agriculture,  a "mono-culture" is a dangerous thing, even when it is efficient...



Monoculture and the Irish Potato Famine: cases of missing genetic variation


With diversity (i.e. of  ideas), when some inevitably fail, some succeed...
If there is only one thing and that fails, there is nothing left.

Moto G: $179

www.motorola.com/MotoG‎
4.5", 720p, quad core... $179 without plan (8GB version), $199 (16 GB)
1GB RAM, 5Mpx camera, 3G only...

... making it even harder for Nokia/Microsoft...

Moto G versus Nexus 4 | Android Central:

Motorola Moto G review: how good can a $179 smartphone be? | The Verge


"Comparing the Moto G against more expensive handsets isn't exactly fair. Anyone upgradingto the Moto G is likely to notice a huge leap in performance. That’s true even for those with flagship phones from 2011, like the Samsung Galaxy S II or iPhone 4S, and the difference between the Moto G and any other sub-$200 handset ever is night and day. In the sub-$200 market, only Windows Phone devices like the Lumia 520 and 620 get close to the kind of experience that Motorola is offering here.
...
this phone truly redefines what a low-end smartphone can be, and is the best attempt yet to turn “the next billion” into smartphone users"

Null: The Billion Dollar Mistake

Null References: The Billion Dollar Mistake: @ InfoQ
"Tony Hoare introduced Null references in ALGOL W back in 1965 “simply because it was so easy to implement”, says Mr. Hoare. He talks about that decision considering it “my billion-dollar mistake”."

Sir Charles Antony Richard Hoare, commonly known as Tony Hoare, is a British computer scientist, probably best known for the development in 1960, at age 26, of Quicksort.
He currently works in Microsoft.

A solution: Null Object pattern - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In object-oriented computer programming, a Null Object is an object with defined neutral ("null") behavior. The Null Object design pattern describes the uses of such objects and their behavior (or lack thereof).

interface IAnimal {
    void MakeSound();
}

class NullAnimal : IAnimal {
    public void MakeSound() {
        // Purposefully provides no behaviour.
    }
}
...
IAnimal unknown = new NullAnimal(); //instead of: unknown = null;
   unknown.MakeSound(); // outputs nothing, but does not throw a runtime exception