Azure Cloud += GE industrial IoT

GE Partners With Microsoft To Sell Its 'Industrial Cloud' Platform On Azure - Forbes

GE’s Internet-of-Things Platform to Run on Microsoft’s Cloud - WSJ

GE Predix is already running on AWS and Oracle clouds, and it is expected to be $20B by 2020

Integration with Microsoft services considered important to enterprise customers

GE and Microsoft partner to bring Predix to Azure, accelerating digital transformation for industrial customers

How We Learn (vs. How We Think We Learn)

A popular science book, similar ideas from books
"Mind for Numbers" and "Make it Stick"

How We Learn by Benedict Carey | PhilosophersNotes - OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson

How We Learn by Benedict Carey - YouTube
Select ideas:

1: "Spacing" (split in few smaller sessions) is much better than
"Cramming" (all at once long sessions);
metaphor of watering a lawn

2: "Fluency"  vs "Mastery"
Repeated reading creates fluency illusion of familiarity, that fades away quickly.
It is much better is to often do:
* testing to that establishes knowledge.
* try to actively "recall", to retrieve from memory, that solidifies memory
Should feel level of "desirable difficulty" to establish memory

3. Test: frequent testing improves performance on future testing
Teach: best learning happens when trying to explain to somebody else (mastery comes are result of teaching)
Mix: varying topic, "interleaving", is much better that study of single topic at a time

4. Sleep & Naps solidify learning, it is essential part of learning
when subconscious mind consolidates what is learned.

5. "Zeigarnik effect" unfinished task is being processed in sleep by subconscious mind, and is better remembered!

Excellent scientific presentation, same ideas!
How We Learn Versus How We Think We Learn - YouTube


How to Become a Straight-A Student by Cal Newport | PhilosophersNotes - OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson

• Work/Learning results = Time * Intensity
• Best way to increase results is to increase Intensity
• Strategies to deal with procrastination
• When to study: early, the earlier the better
• How long to study: less than 1 hour
• Where to study: in isolation
• #1 tip: test yourself, and try to recall information
• Space out 

AI: Alphabet DeepMind Improves Cloud Power Efficiency up to 40%

DeepMind AI Program Increases Google Data Center Cooling Power Usage Efficiency by 40%

"Alphabet's DeepMind division reports they improved the overall power usage efficiency (PUE) of Google's data centers by 15 percent after placing an AI program similar to a program taught to play Atari games in charge of managing a data center's control systems. DeepMind and data center engineers report they've improved the cooling systems PUE consistently by up to 40 percent"Google Cuts Its Giant Electricity Bill With DeepMind-Powered AI - Bloomberg

"Google reportedly used 4,402,836 MWh of electricity in 2014, or the equivalent of 366,903 U.S family homes according to Google Green
...
serving a Google user for a month is like driving a car one mile.
...
cost savings could... pay for the ... more than $600 million DeepMind acquisition. It will also reportedly reduce their data center's carbon-footprint-per-user."

Efficiency: How we do it – Data Centers – Google

Good visualization of statistics:

Microsoft Azure Datacenter Tour

Microsoft Datacenter Tour (long version) - YouTube

free ebook: Going Pro in Data Science

free ebook: Going Pro in Data Science - O'Reilly Media
"What It Takes to Succeed as a Professional Data Scientist"
By Jerry Overton
Publisher: O'Reilly
Released: March 2016

Cake: C# Make, a build automation tool

Understanding Cake with Gary Ewan Park @ .NET Rocks! vNext
"Cake - aka C# Make. Cake is a cross platform build automation solution - it works on Windows, OSX and Linux."

Cake - Start

Docker web training: KataCoda

Focused on Docker, and it is a free service, all from web browser:

Katacoda - Interactive Learning Platform for Software Engineers

"The best way to learn its by doing. All our tutorials are interactive with pre-configured live environments ready for you to use."

podcast interview: Learning Tech on KataCoda with Ben Hall @ .NET Rocks! vNext

1000s free programming books @ GitHub

GitHub - vhf/free-programming-books: Freely available programming books

free-programming-books/free-programming-books.md at master · vhf/free-programming-books · GitHub

free-programming-books/free-programming-books.md at master · vhf/free-programming-books · GitHub

free-programming-books/free-courses-en.md at master · vhf/free-programming-books · GitHub

link from:
Lie Detection using Azure Machine Learning with Jennifer Marsman @ .NET Rocks! vNext

.NET Core MAX_PATH > 260

Windows has a limit on max length of file path that is usually 260 characters.
This is sometimes a problem, in particular for tools that originate from Unix/Linux, such as node.js
There are work-arounds, and now there is a "proper" solution for new .NET Core.

Naming Files, Paths, and Namespaces (Windows)
For example: "\\?\D:\very long path"
Path Format Overview – Jeremy Kuhne's Blog

Long Paths in .NET, Part 1 of 3 [Kim Hamilton] – BCL Team Blog

podcast interview:
Fixing File Paths in .NET Core with Jeremy Kuhne @ .NET Rocks! vNext

multi-cloud tool: Terraform, "Infrastructure as Code"

Terraform by HashiCorp

GitHub - hashicorp/terraform: Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and combining infrastructure safely and efficiently. @ GitHub

"Terraform is a tool for building, changing, and versioning infrastructure safely and efficiently. Terraform can manage existing and popular service providers as well as custom in-house solutions."

link from podcast:
Cloud Infrastructure with Paul Stack @ .NET Rocks! vNext

== book: Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience ==

Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (Harper Perennial Modern Classics): Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: 9780061339202: Amazon.com: Books

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow: a state of complete involvement in what you are doing
also makes everyday activities more enjoyable.
Necessary preconditions:

1. Clear Goals (long and short term, moment to moment)
   in some sports goals are clear; in most cases it is up to us to make clear goals,
   even in most boring and simple activities
2. Immediate Feedback: even boring activities can be made more rewarding by making a game out of them, do the best, beat the time for example, do most efficiently & effectively, to be in control of the time that would be wasted otherwise

4 major benefits from Flow activities:

• get control of your inner life: attention, moods, willpower
• experience flow in everyday activities regardless of external conditions
• learn how to develop increasingly complex self
• put together everyday experiences into a meaningful life filled with serenity and satifaction

what makes real difference is not what you learn, but what you do to implement those ideas

to discover what makes people happy better learn from results of scientific research than slowly by trial and error

major components of flow;

1. Clear Goals, both major and minor step by step, not confusing and contradictory
2. Immediate Feedback: is what you are doing getting you closer to goals or not
3. Challenges of activity are matched with skills of the person.
4. When first 3 conditions are met, emerges felling of Focus and Concentration
   on what you are doing, instead of usual split attention
   Because of this focus you can achieve so much more when in flow state;
   feeling of inner harmony, great ease, spontaneous energy 
5. because of focus, stops being aware of usual problems of everyday life
   they are removed from attention by focus, no worry about past and future
   The flow becomes an form of escape from reality, by creating new reality.
   Instead of "escape backward" by using drugs, alcohol that is repressing reality.
   In flow, we "escape forward" by creating a new reality by taking on new challenges and learning new skills 
6. feeling to be in control of your life, but not in control since that would mean that your skills are higher than the challenge, but you are on an edge where control is possible by using your skills in their entirety
7. loosing sense of self conciseness, loosing ego-defenses of everyday life; not warring what others think about our self, that is one of the worse feelings. In the flow you are so involved, that you can not wary what others think of you. Sense of transcendence, going beyond the limits of the self. While you forget yourself during the activity, typically reflecting after the flow activity increases self esteem, feeling good about your accomplishment.
   (a paradox of flow: you let your self go, and it returns stronger)
8. sense of time seems to be transformed, loosing sense of passing time, time is condensed. Time adapts itself to your experience, timfee passes fast.

what is the difference between "pleasure" and "enjoyment"? (happiness)
enjoyable state of flow is quite different from what people think as a pleasure

pleasure is result of and it supports evolution:
 fill good when we eat to get enough nutrition,
 fill good having sex, to reproduce
pleasure does not require skills, but while it can help us survive it does not help us grow
pleasure can also be dangerous because can get addicted to it if not controlled

enjoyment from flow does not come from simply satisfying basic instincts,
but from recognizing new challenges, developing new skills we didn't have before
flow lead to growth and higher levels of complexity

To lead a happy life it is not enough to have a few isolated  happy experiences every now and then.
Instead, one can learn how to find enjoyment from any situation that may come up
To do so one must muster its conscientiousness  how to harness attention for your goals

Conscientiousness is an an important but a bit long word so I will short it to c16s

This means there is 16 letters between first c and last s.

"Mindfulness" is also a synonym for c16s sometimes.

c16s is responsible for everything that we are aware of and experience in our life.

It is like a flashlight that provides a focus on what we are currently attending.

Attention is an limited resource, there is only so much that we can attend in any given moment.

When there are too many things competing for out attention we have confusion and can not focus. 

If c16s is focused and ordered than anything we do can be enjoyable 

and we can accomplish what we want to achieve. 

Flow is based on "autotelic" experiences, those who are worth having for its own sake not for any other reason. Word autotelic is based on Greek words auto meaning self and telos meaning goal.

When in an autotelic experience, your c16s is in harmony and focused. 

It is important since it is when we feel most alive, when we are most completely ourselves. 

The more we can have such experiences, the better off we are. 

Autotelic people are internally driven, and as such may exhibit a sense of purpose and curiosity.

Characteristics of "complex personalities", those who can get flow not only from select activities but from everything around them.

• clarity of goals and clarity of feedback; knowing what you want to do in life and moment to moment
• center, ability to focus, knowing how to avoid distractions and become one with what you are doing, have all of your attention, c16s under your conrol
• choice, know that there is a variety of options, that you are not forced to do by events around you; you are doing it not because you have to do it but because you want to do it.
• commit yourself, care for what you are doing, even for trivial things
• challenge, you increase level as you muster previous challenge, always looking for more exciting

Flow (psychology) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Autotelic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"A thing which is autotelic is described as "having a purpose in and not apart from itself". The word comes from the Greek αὐτοτελής autotelēs from αὐτός autos, "self" and τέλος telos, "goal"."

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes people who are internally driven, and as such may exhibit a sense of purpose and curiosity, as autotelic

bool review:
Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi | PhilosophersNotes - OPTIMIZE with Brian Johnson
"the flow state is (hint: get fully engaged in an activity that matches your skills with your challenge) and we’ll look at some other Big Ideas on controlling the contents of our consciousness to get out of anxiety and boredom as we create more flow experiences in our lives"

Takeaways from Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience – Corey Breier

video: Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi - YouTube

• "chose what to focus on"
• "do what you know"
• skill / challenge axes:
• flow: skill = challenge
• boredom: skill > challenge
• anxiety: skill < challenge

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness | TED Talk | TED.com

TED: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness - YouTube



Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow, the secret to happiness - YouTube

Living in flow - the secret of happiness with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi at Happiness & Its Causes 2014 - YouTube


FLOW BY MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI | ANIMATED BOOK REVIEW - YouTube

Top 50 Free Online Courses

useful catalog of online classes, unclear what is ranking method

Top 50 Free Online Courses | Class Central
"HIGHEST RATED MOOCS"

23 Coursera
11 edX

6 FutureLearn
2 Udacity

Pokémon Go = Google Maps + Pokemon

Pokémon Go: Niantic CEO John Hanke interview - Business Insider

Pokémon Go Creator - John Hanke's Inspiring Story - TechStroke

Niantic, Inc. - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Pokémon GO - Android Apps on Google Play

Pokemon Go Isn’t The Solution to Nintendo’s Problems. It’s a Symptom of Them | WIRED

clouds: Microsoft Azure vs Amazon Web Services

Azure Podcast: Episode 134 - Mapping AWS to Azure

Episode 79 - Azure A-Z

Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services @ Azure
"a reference chart to show each IT capability along with its corresponding service or feature in both Azure and AWS"
(Part 1) Microsoft Azure for Amazon AWS Cloud Professionals: Getting Started | TechNet Radio | Channel 9

Directory of Azure Cloud Services | Microsoft Azure

Cloud Products & Services - Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Tesla Master Plan 2.0

Elon Musk Reveals How He Forecasts Tesla’s Future - Bloomberg

Master Plan, Part Deux | Tesla Motors

• "Create stunning solar roofs with seamlessly integrated battery storage
• Expand the electric vehicle product line to address all major segments
• Develop a self-driving capability that is 10X safer than manual via massive fleet learning
• Enable your car to make money for you when you aren't using it"

Tesla’s Plan for World Domination Includes Buses and Semis | WIRED

AI, ML, DL: Microsoft CNTK: Computational Network Toolkit

GitHub - Microsoft/CNTK: Computational Network Toolkit (CNTK) @ GitHub

Microsoft releases CNTK, its open source deep learning toolkit, on GitHub - Next at Microsoft



CNTK - Computational Network Toolkit
"Production-quality, Open Source, Multi-machine, Multi-GPU,
Highly efficent RNN training,
Speech, Image, Text"

PDF program libraries

PDFtk - The PDF Toolkit
PDFtk - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
PDFtk is a front end to the iText library

iTextSharp, a .NET PDF library | SourceForge.net

(Affero GNU)

Home of PDFsharp and MigraDoc Foundation - PDFsharp & MigraDoc
Licensing - PDFsharp & MigraDoc
PDFsharp and MigraDoc Foundation are published under the MIT License.

wkhtmltopdf

"wkhtmltopdf and wkhtmltoimage are open source (LGPLv3) command line tools to render HTML into PDF and various image formats using the Qt WebKit rendering engine. These run entirely "headless" and do not require a display or display service."

Syncfusion Ebooks | PDF Succinctly

data: JSON vs XML vs CSV for Azure Cloud

JSON is smaller than XML, but it is not small for data.
Old TSV/CSV is often much more efficient than JSON for data.
There is no need to repeat metadata when format is structured.
Binary protocols are faster than text based.
Google is internally using binary Protocol Buffers for all communication
So why we are still using less efficient data formats?

"...JSON is an alternate OData payload format to (XML based) AtomPub, which significantly reduces the size of the payload and results in lower latency. To reduce the payload size even further we are providing a way to turn off the payload echo during inserts. Both of these new features are now the default behavior in the newly released Windows Azure Storage Client 3.0 Library.

<entry m:etag="W/"datetime'2013-12-03T06%3A37%3A20.9709094Z'"">
    <id>http://someaccount.table.core.windows.net/Customers(PartitionKey='Jonathan',RowKey='Foster')</id>
    <category term="someaccount.Customers" scheme="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2007/08/dataservices/scheme" />
    <link rel="edit" title="Customers" href="Customers(PartitionKey='Jonathan',RowKey='Foster')" />
    <title />
    <updated>2013-12-03T06:37:21Z</updated>
    <author>
      <name />
    </author>
    <content type="application/xml">
      <m:properties>
        <d:PartitionKey>Jonathan</d:PartitionKey>
        <d:RowKey>Foster</d:RowKey>
        <d:Timestamp m:type="Edm.DateTime">2013-12-03T06:37:20.9709094Z</d:Timestamp>
        <d:Address>1234 SomeStreet St, Bellevue, WA 75001</d:Address>
        <d:Email>Jonathan@fourthcoffee.com</d:Email>
        <d:PhoneNumber>425-555-0101</d:PhoneNumber>
        <d:CustomerSince m:type="Edm.DateTime">2005-01-05T00:00:00Z</d:CustomerSince>
        <d:Rating m:type="Edm.Int32">3</d:Rating>
      </m:properties>
    </content>
  </entry>

 {
      "PartitionKey":"Jonathan",
      "RowKey":"Foster",
      "Timestamp":"2013-12-03T06:45:00.7254269Z",
      "Address":"1234 SomeStreet St, Bellevue, WA 75001",
      "Email":"Jonathan@fourthcoffee.com",
      "PhoneNumber":"425-555-0101",
      "CustomerSince":"2005-01-05T00:00:00Z",
      "Rating":3
 },

"Jonathan","Foster","2013-12-03T06:45:00.7254269Z","1234 SomeStreet St, Bellevue, WA 75001"

,"Jonathan@fourthcoffee.com","425-555-0101","2005-01-05T00:00:00Z",3

Goals:D.U.M..B. vs S.M.A.R.T. ?

How NOT to Set Goals (Why S.M.A.R.T. goals are lame) - YouTube
by Brendon Burchard

Are DUMB Goals Better Than SMART Goals? | Michael D. Pollock
SMART goals acronym for goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-Bound

DUMB Goals. According to Brendon, these are goals that are:

• Dream-Driven
• Uplifitng
• Method-Friendly
• Behavior-Driven

Azure Stack dedicated HW

Unexpected hardware limits on Microsoft's Azure Stack vex some developers - GeekWire

"Microsoft VP Mike Neil wrote that Azure Stack’s general release, targeted for mid-2017, will combine software, hardware, support and services — and will be available only from Dell, HPE and Lenovo, at least initially."

Ready for Windows (10) as a Service (WaaS)

Ready for Windows - Windows Supported Software
"Join the Windows 10 Compatible Logo Program
Create demand for your solutions with the Windows 10 Compatible logo. Use it in your marketing activities to showcase your support for Windows 10 as well as the quality of your solutions.

To qualify for the Windows 10 Compatible Logo Program, you have to create:

• A listing in the Directory.
• Have a support statement declaring support for Windows as a Service (WaaS)"

smart-phone-watches

Samsung's Gear S2 smartwatch with 3G will cost you $50 more

cellular version of Samsung's Tizen smartwatch and its fancy rotating bezel

LG's 2nd Watch Urbane is the first Android Wear device with LTE

LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE reportedly canceled due to image quality hardware issue | Android Central

Smartwatch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Azure AD Role-Based Access Control (RBAC)

Azure Active Directory AD Role-based Access Control | Microsoft Azure
"Azure Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) enables fine-grained access management for Azure. Using RBAC, you can segregate duties within your DevOps team and grant only the amount of access to users that they need to perform their jobs."

RBAC: Built in Roles | Microsoft Azure

Architecting Azure Solutions (70-534): Secure Resources | Pluralsight

Managing Role-Based Access Control with Windows PowerShell

Microsoft Releases Azure Roles Based Access Control Service -- Redmondmag.com

Azure ML "cheat sheet"

Machine learning algorithm cheat sheet | Microsoft Azure



. Lie Detection using Azure Machine Learning with Jennifer Marsman @ NET Rocks! vNext

Why a machine learning job at Microsoft means the chance to “try amazing things” - JobsBlog: Life at Microsoft

Inside the New Microsoft, Where Lie Detection Is a Killer App - Bloomberg

F# Data Types

F# Fundamentals | Pluralsight

Visual Studio 2015 -> View -> Other Windows -> F# Interactive

Primitive Types: no automatic type conversion
1.          // float, has a .
255uy       // byte
3.14M       // decimal
to convert data type use type name as a function name:
string 3.14 // convert to string
float "3.14"// convert to float
Literals (F#) @ MSDN
floating point - Difference between Decimal, Float and Double in .NET? - Stack Overflow
C# in Depth: Decimal floating point in .NET
decimal type is just another form of floating point number - but unlike float and double, the base used is 10; A decimal is stored in 128 bits

Boolean operations: &&, ||, not

String indexing:
"Hello".[1] // 'e'
"Hello".[1..2] // 'el'
"Hello".[1..] // 'ello'
String.init 3 (for i -> i * 10 |> string) // 01020 
Every F# statement evaluates to a value; no-value (void):  unit = ()
> printfn "Hello"
Hello
val it : unit = ()
Lists are immutable (linked list of same type); modify by creating new list from existing list
[]
// val it : 'a list = [] // empty list of any type
[1;2;3]  // is same as
1 :: [2;3] // head :: tail of the list, 'cons' operator ::
1::(2::(3::[])) // same thing
[1..3] // list range
// val it : int list [1; 2; 3]
[1..2..6] // increment 2
// val it : int list [1; 3; 5]
[1;2] @ [3;4] // list concatenation to a single list
// val it : int list = [1;2;3;4]
List comprehensions:
[for x in 1..3 do yield 2*x]
// val it : int list = [2;4;6]
[for x in 1..3 -> 2*x] // same thing, briefer syntax
[for x in 1..2 do
 for y in 1..2 do
     yield (x,y)] // result is a list of tuples
// val it : (int * int) list = [(1;1);(1;2);(2;1);(2;2)]
Arrays:
// val it : int list = [1;2;3;4]

TypeScript 2.0: end of null problems

TypeScript 2.0 Beta Brings Option Types, Discriminated Unions, and More

"Non-nullable types aim to solve the most common source of bugs in JavaScript, says Rosenwasser: null and undefined. Non-nullable types forbid assigning null to a variable, unless it is declared as an option type:"

let foo1: string = null; // Error!
let foo2: string | null = null; // Option type

Markdown Tutorials

http://www.markdown-tutorial.com/

http://www.markdowntutorial.com/

Toward a Better Markdown Tutorial @ CODING HORROR



CommonMark

Multi-Cloud Scripting

AWS Adds Multi-Cloud Scripting to EC2 Run Command Feature

"In late 2015, AWS unveiled the EC2 Run Command feature. It gave operators a single interface for running administrative tasks across a fleet of AWS servers. In June of this year, AWS expanded the scope of the feature to work with servers located in other clouds or data centers.

Using EC2 Run Command, teams can run ad-hoc Linux shell scripts or Windows PowerShell commands, install applications and patch the operating system, regardless of where the instance is located.

The EC2 Run Command works through agent software running on the target machines. This agent, part of EC2 Simple Systems Manager (SSM) service and found on GitHub, is built into AWS Windows images, and available for manual installation on servers running Amazon Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Windows Server. The agent works through an outbound HTTP request, and no inbound ports need to be opened"

---

Interesting solution that could be applicable for many more situations, like IoT.
Azure also has very similar Agents for managing both Linux and Windows cloud VMs.
That agent is also open source, so it may be technically possible to manage VMs on other clouds.
GitHub - Azure/WALinuxAgent: Microsoft Azure Linux Guest Agent

If or when PowerShell Core becomes available on Linux that may be even better platform.
In particular Azure Desired State Configuration is a very useful feature.

Amazon++

Amazon Ecosystem Lock-In = PRIME + Echo + 2lemetry | Jon Nordmark | LinkedIn

quotes by Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Quote by Buckminster Fuller 
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes - BrainyQuote

R. Buckminster Fuller Quotes (Author of Critical Path)

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.” 

― R. Buckminster Fuller

Windows 10 += Win32 (Project Centennial)

Project Centennial": Converting your Classic Windows App (Win32, .Net, COM) to a Universal Windows App for Distribution in the Windows Store | Build 2015 | Channel 9

Download Desktop App Converter Preview (Project Centennial) from Official Microsoft Download Center

Simplifying the Road from Win32 to Windows 10 @ InfoQ

"Centennial works by launching your installer in a dedicated container that presents a fake Windows environment that looks real. It does not actually install your application, but rather monitors all system changes your application’s installer makes. This includes new files, file associations, and registry changes. Once Centennial understands how your installer works, it can produce a valid APPX package that follows UWP guidelines. Centennial will work on any installer that is silent, that is, the installer must not require any user interaction (clicking next, slicking installation directory, etc)."

Porting Win32 Applications to Windows 10 with VS15 @ InfoQ

Nicholas Negroponte: 'internet should be free'

Nicholas Negroponte: ‘The internet shouldn’t be affordable. It should be free.’ | Chip Cutter | LinkedIn

“The internet shouldn’t be affordable. It should be free,” said Negroponte, the co-founder of MIT’s Media Lab and the One Laptop per Child effort. “It should be free like sidewalks, lighting the streets, roads — certain things that we consider part of our infrastructure.”

Cloud & Cash-Free Future

Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) | Microsoft Azure


Fintech Cannot Be Ignored Any Longer | Daniel Burrus | LinkedIn
"The technology behind the virtual currency Bitcoin, called blockchain, has the potential to be a major game-changer in the world of finance. Transactional charges could all but disappear, and blockchain could even deliver the much-needed cross-border micro-payments that can unlock new areas of international trade."
In Sweden, a Cash-Free Future Nears - The New York Times

SQL Server 2016

claimed to be largest update in a while, recently released:

SQL Server 2016 | Microsoft

SQL Server 2016 General Availability Announcement with Rohan Kumar | Data Exposed | Channel 9

free ebook: SQL Server 2016 | Microsoft

10-core Intel i7: $1750

The Intel Broadwell-E Review: Core i7-6950X, i7-6900K, i7-6850K and i7-6800K Tested

Intel Core i7-6950X 25M Broadwell-E 10-Core 3.0 GHz LGA 2011-v3 140W BX80671I76950X Desktop Processor - Newegg.com

• $1,749.99

• 10 Cores / 20 Threads
• LGA 2011-v3
• 4 Channels DDR4 2400; one DIMM per Channel
• 140W TDP
• Up to 40 Lanes PCIe 3.0 (2x16+1x8)

ReadTheDocs: ASP.NET Core 1.0

https://readthedocs.com/projects/aspnet-aspnet/downloads/pdf/latest/

ASP.NET Core Documentation — ASP.NET documentation

Always free for open source projects at readthedocs.org
"Documentation can be written in reStructuredText orMarkdown. Write just prose documentation, or include referential documentation that is written alongside your code."
Home - Read the Docs for Business

cloud: samsung += Joyent

Samsung Acquires Cloud Provider Joyent @ InfoQ

"Samsung has acquired Joyent, the public cloud provider positioning itself as a container-native cloud platform. The buyout gives Samsung an immediate cloud presence, and the potential to build an integrated back-end platform to support its consumer-facing devices. For Joyent, there is the potential for rapid growth if Samsung invest to expand the reach of the service. As Forbes observes, potentially the biggest attraction for both parties is the ability to offer an end-to-end experience in the Internet of Things space: “IoT is expected to be at the center of Samsung’s strategy.

Wired described Joyent as 'the best-kept secret in cloud computing'.

...running SmartOS, Joyent’s proprietary, but open-source, operating system built on Solaris. The choice of Solaris over a Linux distribution comes from Joyent’s engineering history – many of the team worked at Sun Microsystems. With Solaris comes Solaris Zones, a containerization technology that pre-dates Docker by almost ten years.

...

Joyent brings years of experience with Node.js (it was the project’s custodian before creating the Node.js Foundation)"

Architecting IoT

Architecting for the IoT | VoltDB
"This O’Reilly report examines the critical role operational databases play in that convergence."

wp-technical-overview.pdf

A Reference Architecture for the Internet of Things @ InfoQ

Cloud: free & trial services

Sign Up For Your Free Trial  |  Google Cloud Platform
"Sign up and get $300 to spend on Google Cloud Platform over the next 60 days."

Google Cloud Computing, Hosting Services & APIs  |  Google Cloud Platform

Google To Offer Free Cloud Credits For Universities - Fortune
"For students to receive access to the cloud services, university computer science faculty and those teaching related courses can apply online."

IBM Makes A Quantum Research Project Available On Its Cloud - Fortune

10 IaaS providers who provide free cloud resources - TechRepublic

Outlier Developer

course: Becoming an Outlier: Reprogramming the Developer Mind | Pluralsight
by Cory House

OutlierDeveloper | Reboot Your Career

Outlier Manifesto | OutlierDeveloper

The Multithreaded Commute – Ten Audiobooks to Get You Started | OutlierDeveloper

Taking Notes While Driving: Three Ways to Clear Your Mind | OutlierDeveloper

Amazon.com: Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones (Discontinued by Manufacturer): Home Audio & Theater

RescueTime : Time management software for staying productive and happy in the modern workplace


Hacker News

Azure Data Catalog

Azure Data Catalog Documentation | Microsoft Azure


Azure Data Catalog - get started with Data Catalog | Microsoft Azure

How to set up the Business Glossary for governed tagging | Microsoft Azure
"glossary terms ... fields:

• A business definition for the term
• A description which captures the intended use or business rules for the asset/column
• A list of stakeholders who know the most about the term
• The parent term, which defines the hierarchy in which the term is organized

The Data Catalog business glossary provides the ability to describe your business vocabulary as a hierarchy of terms. This allows organizations to create a classification of terms which better represents their business taxonomy."

terms are used for tagging assets in Data Catalog; tags:

• user tags, and
• glossary tags

Microsoft Technology Centers

Microsoft Technology Centers

"At the MTC, we will help you find the right solutions to transform your business in a mobile-first, cloud-first world.
With over 30 locations around the globe, the MTCs bring together the right resources to help you explore the potential impact of cloud, mobile & social solutions to your business."

Microsoft Technology Center - Philadelphia

philly.NET – Philadelphia Area .NET User Group

book: Algorithms to Live By

presentation: Brian Christian: Algorithms to Live By - The Long Now

"Deciding when to stop your quest for the ideal apartment, or ideal spouse, depends entirely on how long you expect to be looking, says Brian Christian. The first one you check will be the best you’ve seen, but it’s unlikely to be the best you’ll ever see. So you keep looking and keep finding new bests, though ever less frequently, and you start to wonder if maybe you refused the very best you’ll ever find. And the search is wearing you down. When should you take the leap and look no further?

The answer from computer science is precise: 37% of the way through your search period. If you’re spending a month looking for an apartment, you should calibrate (and be sorely tempted) for 11 days, and then you should grab the next best-of-all you find."

book's website: Algorithms to Live By | Brian Christian | Macmillan

author's website: Algorithms to Live By | Brian Christian

Brian Christian - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions: Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths: 0889290409195: Amazon.com: Books

review: Algorithms to Live By @ huffingtonpost

Dynamic programming - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"dynamic programming (also known as dynamic optimization) is a method for solving a complex problem by breaking it down into a collection of simpler subproblems, solving each of those subproblems just once, and storing their solutions... A dynamic programming algorithm will examine the previously solved subproblems and will combine their solutions to give the best solution for the given problem"

Optimal stopping - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Secretary problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Blockchain @ Azure for "unstoppable apps"

Introduction to Blockchain with Ethereum hands-on | Techs"R"Us | Channel 9

Ethereum Project

Blockchain as a Service (BaaS) | Microsoft Azure
"Blockchain is an emerging way for businesses, industries, and public organizations to almost instantaneously make and verify transactions—streamlining business processes, saving money, and reducing the potential for fraud. At its core, a blockchain is a data structure that’s used to create a digital transaction ledger that, instead of resting with a single provider, is shared among a distributed network of computers."

Azure/azure-blockchain-projects: Home of blockchain and distributed ledger projects like Azure Blockchain as a Service DevTest labs artifacts. @ GitHub

blockchain Azure Quickstart Templates

Open Source Ecology (Autonomous $25K House)

podcast interview Marcin Jakubowski on Open Source Ecology: From Mud Hut to Singularity in 1 Day @ Singularity one on one (weblog)

Open Source Ecology
Tools and eco-house build from ground up with open source designs.


Global Village Construction Set by Marcin Jakubowski — Kickstarter

Global Village Construction Set - Open Source Ecology

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization | TED Talk | TED.com

TEDxKC - Marcin Jakubowski - Civilization Starter Kit - YouTube

Quote by George Bernard Shaw:
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world:
the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself.
Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

The reasonable man adapts... - Quotes-Central.com


Victor Hugo - Wikiquote
"Nothing is as powerful as an idea whose time has come."

draw.io (like Visio in web browser)

draw.io
"draw.io - A web based diagramming application built on mxGraph, that integrates with Google Drive ,OneDrive and Dropbox. draw.io is also a plugin for Atlassian's Confluence and JIRA."
JavaScript Diagramming (jgraph.com)

mxGraph Features