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Since Bernie Madoff has put Ponzi schemes back onto the front pages, it's worth considering whether we are all complicit in the biggest Ponzi scheme of them all, the idea that the global economy can grow indefinitely. I grew up on the idea that humanity would grow out into space, and that resources were for all practical purposes infinite. It... Read more.

This week's podcast has a commentary from editor Kurt Cagle on the potential opportunities that this year could bring, a conversation with Tim O'Reilly about ways the SEC could leverage search technology, the answer to last week's quiz and a... Read more.

Dare I say this on O'Reilly Radar? I admire Bill Gates. If I had a vote for Person of the Year, Gates would get mine. Let me explain why. This year, Gates made an important and potentially difficult transition at age 52, leaving Microsoft as CEO and devoting more of his time and energy to the Bill and Melinda Gates... Read more.

Is Digg Sexist? No. Is the community it attracts "sexist"? Likely. This post is a response to the recent criticism, a diagnosis, and a prescription for future collaborative filtering evolution. The problem with the current iteration of collaborative filters is that they don't account for more than one dominant preference cluster. Read more.

Visit the O'Reilly booth (#2210) at Macworld in San Francisco, January 5-9! We'll have a dynamic lineup of entertaining talks and will be offering a 30% discount on timely new Mac and digital media titles during the conference. We'll also have goodies, and a raffle drawing. View the complete schedule of author presentations.

My New Year's Resolution for this year is simple: practice. You don't have to achieve (or even aim for) total mastery for the practice to be worthwhile. Read more.

The importance of the differences among web application platforms like .NET, JSP, PHP, etc. drops dramatically under the cloud computing paradigm. Which architecture you choose really comes down to one question: what kind of programming and support resources do you have? If the answer is "Microsoft technologies", however, you should be aware of the Microsoft cloud tax. Read more.

Wondering how to fully utilize that new iPhone, iPod or digital camera you got over the holiday? Check out the newly updated iPhone: The Missing Manual, iPod & iTunes: The Missing Manual, and any of our award winning digital photography books. And don't forget you can Buy 2 and Get 1 Free by using code OPC10 in our shopping cart.

I tried a little experiment in 2008: living smaller. I caught public transport only. I got rid of extra lightbulbs. I baked my own bread. I froze my own dumplings. I didn't buy any gadget. I didn't buy any CD. I didn't get a flatscreen TV. No home phone; no home internet; no cable TV; no new art; no gin. Read more.

In my last post I talked about how anybody with enough money (a small 6-figure sum) could create a rogue certification authority (CA). This would allow them to generate certificates for any web site that seem to be genuine. That... Read more.

Let’s get this out of the way first thing. It’s Mah-tay, not M-eight. Like the drink, the creators of Mate, Nahuel Faronda and Laura Arguello, come from Argentina. If you’ve never tried Mate (the drink), you should - it’s tasty.... Read more.

In this interview Mike Mathieu, founder of Frontseat.org, discusses how he is helping to build “software for civic life”. Using publicly available data and web services (many of their applications use S3 and EC2) Frontseat creates simple, highly functional tools like Walkscore (rating neighborhood walkability) and Countmore (helping students in the recent elections decide which state to cast their... Read more.

We now offer 700 books in DRM-free PDF format, including 130 of our bestsellers as Ebook bundles, which includes PDF, .Epub, and .mobi-compatible Kindle format. These can be easily read on the device and system of your choice, from your desktop or laptop computer, Kindle, Sony Reader, iPhone or other mobile device. Also today, we've released all of our Head First titles in PDF format, and David Pogue's bestselling "iPhone: The Missing Manual," is now available as an iPhone App. Read all about it, and buy a few.

Boxing Day, celebrated on the day after Christmas, is a British holiday that's migrated to Canada, and is slowly beginning to make inroads even into the United States. It had its beginnings in the late 18th century, when the landed lords of England, after having given one another presents after Christmas Mass began an interesting custom. After having received new dresses, dress suits, hats and so forth, they would go into their wardrobes and childrens' play rooms and find those things that they no longer wore or used or played with, presenting them as gifts to their servants and staff, a custom which eventually extended to giving inexpensive gifts and trinkets to their tenant farmers and needy villagers. Read more.

I'm just reading a Wendell Berry essay from 2000, entitled In Distrust of Movements, reprinted on a blog with the inspired name The Irresistible Fleet of Bicycles. I was going to just tweet the link, but realized that more people need to read this, and I ought to quote more extensively. (I hope that fans of Michael Pollan's books like... Read more.