This came my way, and I just like the scale of it. Scale of computer systems has truly changed over the last decade, and I imagine this is one of the job that brings SkyNet a little closer to being… :)
Database Architect will be responsible for evaluating the architecture of the Air Force Weather Weapon System with respect to minimizing data access times, expanding data storage from the Terabyte range to the Petabyte range, ensuring high availability (>99%) while minimizing overall cost.
Optimum database design is required to enable operational forecasters in functional and regional forecast centers worldwide to acquire and process both sensed and gridded forecast information from deterministic and ensemble prediction systems and create a forecaster modified layer for specific weather parameters in near real time.
New database architecture must also enable rapid and high-volume web-based hosting, collection, and dissemination of data subsets and post-processed files that include gridded data, text, and common visualization formats as well as KML (Google Earth)-compatible files. Database architect must be experienced with standard data sharing practices such as Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) and SOAP based approaches.
I like the bit about keeping the costs down too – it is high time architects took business and finance objectives as requirements – not bureaucratic obstacles.
Experimenting on customers on customer projects is rarely fun and almost never good. Experimenting for a good cause, and then using these skills for your customers – perfect.
It sounds great, sort of. First, push the customer to adopt the latest and greatest, and figure out exactly how to operate that sharp, spinning, cut-to-the-bone blade of innovation without gloves and safety glasses during implementation. Second, learn your lessons on their dollars, deliver a half-broken system that sparked a thousand promises, and work hard to get a second contract to fix the problems from the first round. [If this situation sounds familiar - maybe you need to find a different partner for services]
Of course, there are other ways. Like doing good and fun things to learn and become better at something (it helps if you are passionate about your work). This is where the ‘Poster’ comes in.
A couple of good friends run a pretty awesome [IMHO] design studio in Brooklyn called Hyperakt. One of the things I really like about them is that in addition to their paid work they also do pro-bono work for various causes, and some just plain fun stuff. A radial bracket World Cup Poster is one such project.
The poster is nifty. I like how it is dynamic – taking its final shape over the weeks of the World Cup tournament. I also like that this is a project hosted on KickStarter , gets socialized on twitter, and helps Hyperakt to better understand how to do such things for their customers, without experimenting using other people’s time and money.
What can I say? Let’s watch some futbol!
I have been going back and forth on pushing twitter updates to this site. I removed them for a while, but recently added them back in – right before stopping them again. While I liked having daily updates to this blog, they were clearly not useful to anyone.
I was flattered, of course, that my daily updates actually became an example of what not to do in a couple of blogs. All the more reason not to do them.
//TODO: Find a twitter archival service
I have had discussions with the [awesome] Lotus Mashups team for a long time. It seems like a product that has lots of uses, and one whose architecture I really like. Recently, I needed to build some demos for a customer, and while that is not going to be published for a while, if ever, this simple demo was kind of fun to try.
This one is very simple, a google doc spreadsheet parsed in using a DataViewer widget sending data to a NavTeq widget.
IBM’s Lotus Greenhouse is really great for trying these things, BTW, and the team’s YouTube channel ItsMashtastic is great for an idea or an example.
