Mac Slocum

Mac Slocum is director of online content at O'Reilly. He's been writing, editing and producing web content in various forms since the mid '90s. He also dabbles in video interviews from time to time.

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Four Short Links has moved

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Signals from the 2015 O’Reilly Velocity Conference in Amsterdam

Key insights from DevOps, Web operations, and performance.

People from across the Web operations and performance worlds came together for the 2015 O’Reilly Velocity Conference in Amsterdam. Below, we’ve assembled notable material from the event.

The Physical Web: A bridge between the Web and physical devices

The app-for-everything approach doesn’t scale, but the Web does. Scott Jenson, project lead for Physical Web at Google, outlines a vision for the Physical Web — an open approach to design and implementation that brings Web interaction to the physical world. “Let’s take the URL bar and bring it in the future,” Jenson says.

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Signals from the O’Reilly 2015 Solid Conference

Insight and analysis on the Internet of Things and the new hardware movement.

Practitioners, entrepreneurs, academics, and analysts came together in San Francisco this week to discuss the Internet of Things and the new hardware movement at the O’Reilly 2015 Solid Conference. Below we’ve assembled notable keynotes and interviews from the event.

Lock in, lock out: DRM in the real world

Author and activist Cory Doctorow uses his Solid keynote to passionately explain how computers are already entwined in our lives and our bodies, which means laws that support lock-in are much more than inconveniences. Doctorow also discusses Apollo 1201, a project from the Electronic Frontier Foundation that aims to eradicate digital rights management (DRM).

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Signals from Strata + Hadoop World 2015 in London

Key insights from Strata + Hadoop World 2015 in London.

People from across the data world came together this week for Strata + Hadoop World 2015 in London. Below we’ve assembled notable keynotes, interviews, and insights from the event.

Shazam already knows the next big hit

“With relative accuracy, we can predict 33 days out what song will go to No. 1 on the Billboard charts in the U.S.,” says Cait O’Riordan, VP of product for music and platforms at Shazam. O’Riordan walks through the data points and trendlines — including the “shape of a pop song” — that give Shazam hints about hits.

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Signals from the O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference 2015

From careers to culture to code, here are key insights from the O'Reilly Software Architecture Conference 2015.

Experts from across the software architecture world came together in Boston for the O’Reilly Software Architecture Conference 2015. Below we’ve assembled notable keynotes, interviews, and insights from the event.

Software architects: post-“post-useful”

The old notion of a software architect being a non-coding, post-useful deep thinker is giving way to something far more interesting, says Neal Ford, software architect and meme wrangler at ThoughtWorks. “Architecture has become much more interesting now because it’s become more encompassing … it’s trying to solve real problems rather than play with abstractions.”

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A bigger and different way of looking at the IoT

Tim O’Reilly’s Solid Conference keynote highlights the capabilities that will let us shape the physical world.

Tim O’Reilly has recently focused on the connection between humans and the Internet of Things (IoT). It’s a topic he’s written about and talked about, and it’s also at the heart of our explorations into interaction design and connected devices and experience design and the Internet of Things.

O’Reilly’s keynote address at the Solid Conference in 2014 explored the human-IoT link. The talk expanded the scope of the IoT, making it clear this isn’t just about individual devices and software — we’re creating “networks of intelligence” that will shape how people work and live.

The talk has become an essential resource for us as we’ve investigated the blurring of the physical and virtual worlds. That’s why we decided to put together a text-friendly version of the presentation that’s easy to scan and reference. And since we think it’s so useful, we’ve made the text version publicly available.

You can download your free copy of “Software Above the Level of a Single Device: The Implications” here. Read more…

Signals from Strata + Hadoop World in Barcelona 2014

From the Internet of Things to data-driven fashion, here are key insights from Strata + Hadoop World in Barcelona 2014.

Experts from across the big data world came together for Strata + Hadoop World in Barcelona 2014. We’ve gathered insights from the event below.

#IoTH: The Internet of Things and Humans

“If we could start over with these capabilities we have now, how would we do it differently?” Tim O’Reilly continues to explore data and the Internet of Things through the lens of human empowerment and the ability to “use technology to give people superpowers.”

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Signals from Strata + Hadoop World New York 2014

From unique data applications to factories of the future, here are key insights from Strata + Hadoop World New York 2014.

Experts from across the data world came together in New York City for Strata + Hadoop World New York 2014. Below we’ve assembled notable keynotes, interviews, and insights from the event.

Unusual data applications and the correct way to say “Hadoop”

Hadoop creator and Cloudera chief architect Doug Cutting discusses surprising data applications — from dating sites to premature babies — and he reveals the proper (but in no way required) pronunciation of “Hadoop.”

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Signals from Velocity New York 2014

From the lure of work that matters to building your own device lab, here are key talks from Velocity New York 2014.

Practitioners and experts from the web operations and performance worlds came together in New York City this week for Velocity New York 2014. Below you’ll find a handful of keynotes and interviews from the event that we found particularly notable.


Mikey Dickerson: From Google to HealthCare.gov to the U.S. Digital Service

“These problems are fixable, these problems are important, but they require you to choose to work on them” — Mikey Dickerson looks back on what it took to fix HealthCare.gov and he reveals his reasons for joining the U.S. Digital Service.

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